


Red's Halfway House for Troubled Trainers

by clefairytea



Series: Peaks and Valleys Adjacent [5]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Adults doing their best and good kids with complicated problems., Cross-Generational Friendship, Established Relationship, F/F, M/M, Neurodiversity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-25 01:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17111816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clefairytea/pseuds/clefairytea
Summary: ‘Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself for a few weeks?’It’s the fifteenth time Blue has asked, and it’s starting to get on Red’s nerves. Something must show on his face, because Blue waves a hand, sighing.‘It’s not that. I know you can take care of yourself,’ he shrugs, and then rests a hand gently on the cast on Red’s leg, ‘It’s this.’Red glances down, frowning. His frown deepens at the signatures scrawled across the plaster – he’d initially tried to stop people from doing it, didn’t like the messiness, but a couple of the Battle Tree regulars did it anyway. As always, people really didn’t get ‘no’. Eventually, he gave in.Even though Blue signed last, he managed to take up the most space.‘I can cancel,’ Blue offers, again, but his heart is not in it. He’s been looking forward to this. They’ve been looking forward to this.The plan had been Kalos, for four weeks. Blue had gotten an invitation to take part in a research tour, an expedition of the mountains. Naturally, Red had been immediately invited, with the plan to extend the expedition to a more personal tour of the country afterwards.Then, Red broke his leg.--Blue goes away for a few weeks.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is for a Tumblr request. It got wildly out of control. I split it into 6 chapters for easy reading, but I did write it as one long thing, so I'd recommend reading it like that if that's comfortable for you.
> 
> I don't think there are any major content warnings here. Warning for minor vomiting, descriptions of poop, discussion of ableism, I think off-hand sex references, and preteens having complicated gay feelings they don't know how to process.
> 
> I don't think you need to have read Peaks and Valleys, my other Pokémon fic, to enjoy this. There are a few references that are possibly confusing if you haven't read the first fic, but I think otherwise you'd be able to enjoy it alone. 
> 
> Anyway, this was lots of fun to write, so I hope it's lots of fun to read. Enjoy, and happy holidays~!

‘Are you _sure_ you’ll be okay by yourself for a few weeks?’

It’s the fifteenth time Blue has asked, and it’s starting to get on Red’s nerves. Something must show on his face, because Blue waves a hand, sighing.

‘It’s not _that_. I know you can take care of yourself,’ he shrugs, and then rests a hand gently on the cast around Red’s left foreleg, ‘It’s _this._ ’

Red glances down, frowning. His frown deepens at the signatures scrawled across the plaster – he’d initially tried to stop people from doing it, didn’t like the messiness, but a couple of the Battle Tree regulars did it anyway. As always, people really didn’t get ‘ _no_ ’. Eventually, he gave in.

Even though Blue signed last, he of course managed to take up the most space.

‘I can cancel,’ Blue offers, again, but his heart is not in it. He’s been looking forward to this. _They’ve_ been looking forward to this.

The plan had been Kalos, for four weeks. Blue had gotten an invitation to take part in a research tour, an expedition of the north-east mountain range. Naturally, Red had been immediately invited, with the plan to extend the expedition to a more personal tour of the country afterwards.

Then, Red broke his leg.

Red glances up at Blue and shakes his head. Reminds him that he’s been looking forward to it. Blue reads his message and then sighs, rubbing his hand through his hair.

‘Yeah, and I guess it’s kind of late to refund the flight, now, huh?’ he says, patting the top of his (frankly ridiculously huge) case.

Red asks him, head titled, if he really needs all this.

‘All of these supplies are necessary!’ he says, gesturing, ‘Not all of us can survive on a mountain in just a t-shirt and _jeans_.’

Red lifts his hands. He did well enough. Although, he does feel much better now he’s eating regular meals and isn’t dealing with his fingers occasionally going funny colours.

‘Besides, I need the extra space in my luggage,’ he says, flicking a hand, ‘Gotta stock up on _real_ coffee while I’m there.’

Snob.

‘Maybe so. But you drink it too,’ Blue says, smiling and fiddling with the strings of his hoodie. It’s weird to see Blue in his travel clothes – a black hoodie with _Université de Illumis_ printed in big yellow letters across the chest, dark blue jeans, his hair messy and not styled with a million different products for once. 4:30am is too early to do that kind of thing, even for him.

Red doesn’t really get why Blue spends so much time fussing over his appearance, when he looks so nice like this. On the other hand, there’s a weird, very non-sensible part of Red’s brain that much prefers this side of him being private. It’s a part of his psyche he long ago stopped expecting logic from.

‘If you asked, I’m sure Kukui will stop over with you,’ Blue says, sitting on the edge of their bed, ‘Even if just you want someone around to pass you your crutch.’

Red has to roll his eyes at that. He clicks his fingers and Pikachu jolts over from her basket (dislodging Sylveon with an indignant mewl). Taking Red’s crutch in her mouth, she ran over to the bed, passing it up to him.

‘Okay, okay,’ Blue says, laughing, ‘I get it. You’ll be fine. You just better still be here when I get back.’

He says it like it’s a joke, but even Red can tell it is partly very much _not_ a joke. He doesn’t get why Blue gets worried about that either. He hasn’t disappeared for _years_. It’s especially ridiculous now, when he can’t even move about that quickly, and wouldn’t even be able to get up Mount Lanakila by himself.

Trying to explain all that will be far too much effort for something so _obvious_ , so instead Red tucks a hand around Blue’s waist and pulls him in for a quick kiss.

‘Mm, okay, okay, I –‘ he begins, but something buzzes at his hip. He takes out his phone, looks at it, and sighs, ‘Urgh, that’s my cab to the airport. I gotta go.’

He gets up, scooping up Sylveon (still mostly asleep) under one arm, seizing his case with the other, trying to use his phone to alert the Charizard that he’s on his way out, all at once. Red tries not to laugh at how flustered he looks.

‘I’ll text you when I land, let me know if anything comes up here while I’m gone,’ he says, and then hesitates at the bedroom door for a second, expression doing something weird that Red can’t make sense of. He pauses, a moment too long, and then, a considerable amount of decibels too loud, says: ‘Smell ya!’

With that, Blue is gone, leaving Red alone in the Battle Tree for the next couple of weeks.

Red hefts himself up, balancing with his crutch under his arm.

Time to himself. Far from the worst thing in the world. His mobility is lowered, but Mom always told him to be positive in times like this, and the doctor assured had them there were plenty of upper-body exercises Red could occupy himself with. He would continue his training regime as normal, host the Battle Tree alone for a few weeks, possibly get some time to get through the piles of unread books in their living room.

It might, actually, be kind of fun.

#

He is so fucking bored he’s going to explode.

There’s only so many upper back and arm exercises one man can do, but if Charizard as much as catches a glimpse of him doing anything too serious, Red finds a five-foot-two dragon manoeuvring him to sit down, huffing hot, exasperated breaths into his face.

After training (mostly spent sat watching his Pokémon have fun without him), he has to take his medicine.

There’s some painkillers to take the edge off, but then there’s something a bit special.

Red rummages around in the cupboard before he finds it – a pink packet with ‘Chansey Egg’ written on it, in Unovan. The doctor had also told him he should eat one of these a day to speed his recovery.

He had wanted to tell her that it wasn’t technically an _egg_ , it was closer to a type of fungus, really, but the hard shell and gooey inside gave it a certain appearance most people found easier to understand as ‘egg’, and if she was interested he had read quite a few interesting pieces on the subject. Of course, there was no way he’d be able to communicate that in a short doctor’s appointment and, besides, he’d long learned that most people didn’t find these things as interesting as he did.

The main thing is that Chansey ‘eggs’ are incredibly big, insanely expensive, very very good for you, and, above all, the worst-tasting thing Red has ever put in his mouth. Apparently all the descriptions of them being ‘delicious’ refers only to how they taste to Pokémon.

Scrambling, frying, spices, sauces, even Blue’s brave attempt at a meringue, nothing seemed to make it any less gross. Over the past couple of days, without Blue to stare at him the whole time, he’s thought about just skipping it, but that means being in the cast for _longer_.

Grabbing a glass, Red decides that if it’s going to suck either way, he might as well just down it as quick as possible.

#

‘I dunno what to tell you, boss, its winter, we don’t get many trainers out adventurin’ in winter,’ Rada says, watching him pace back and forth. Red wishes she wouldn’t. She sighs, rocking back and forth on the railings. He wishes she wouldn’t do that either – the movement is making him feel anxious.

‘Plus, y’know, half of the walkway is…’ she continues, gesturing to the other side of the Battle Tree, which is still undergoing repairs.

‘Point is, I don’t think we gonna see any trainers popping by today,’ she says, perfectly cheerful, ‘No work for us, I’m afraid!’

She sounds as though she’d very much like to have her time off.

Red thinks it would have been fine, Blue being away, if the Battle Tree was fully operational. But if the Battle Tree wasn’t in this state, Red would have been going with him _anyway_.

Either way, the Battle Tree has been almost entirely silent for the past couple of days. Nobody is battling, and if Red tries to challenge any of his staff, they all politely avoid his eye and walk off, for some reason.

‘Maybe we should take the day off, huh, sir?’ Rada asks, obviously hopeful.

But take the day off to do _what_ , exactly, Red wants to ask. What’s the point?

She’s staring at him, expectant. Red glances out over the landscape – the two women staffing the shop are basically asleep at their posts, and the other trainers are just sitting with their Pokémon below, enjoying a picnic. If Blue were here, he would have dragged Red down to join them. That would have been fine. Everyone would have been happy to let Red sit and get to know their Pokémon, while Blue chattered up a storm beside him.

Now, everyone would stare at him, ask how his leg was doing, ask how Blue was getting on, and then when he couldn’t reply fast enough – or didn’t even understand enough Unovan to get the question – they would move on, not even giving him an extra second.

It was irritating, and not something Red was interested in putting himself through.

With a glance at Rada, he nods, and rushes off as quickly as he can on his crutch. Just in case she tries to hug him or something.

#

 

 He ends up on the beach. He considers fishing, but Lapras is quite stern about not letting him on her back with his cast, and there’s rarely good bites from the shore. He could use Blastoise, who is younger and much less conscientious about his trainer’s health, but that feels a bit dishonest to Lapras.

Walking on the sand is a pain, and he’s pretty sure some of the grit is getting into his cast, so exploring the rock pools or gathering shells isn’t really an option either. He battles some of the wild Pokémon, but none are particularly challenging and he quickly feels as though he’s just bullying them.

Eventually he sits down, Pikachu settling beside him, and tries to get through more of his book. It’s a very interesting history of the Pokéball, starting from the original apricorns in Johto to its eventual mass-production (as well as Rocket influences on that), to its influence on Pokémon-human relations as whole. It’s a very thick book, weighed down with illustrations and useful diagrams, as it delves both into the technological and cultural aspects of the device.

Red is enjoying it immensely, but after a few pages he’s fidgety again. Previously, as he was reading he had stopped every now and then to show Blue some of the more interesting bits, and not being able to is gnawing at him.

He doesn’t really get it. Blue doesn’t really know that much about this, so it’s not like he even offered any major insights. There isn’t any practical reason not having him around should make reading it less enjoyable.

Huffing, Red stuffs the book back into his back. He flicks between apps on his phone, flicking over the news and sports. He opens the Fame Checker app for a second, almost wondering what people have said about him recently, but then closes it again. He stands. Sits back down. Stands again. Puts his crutch on the other side, wondering if that will help. It doesn’t. He switches to the other side. Walks a few steps and stops. Almost sits back down, but then decides he’d rather be on his feet. His stomach hurts a bit. Has it been hurting all day? He didn’t really notice. Maybe he’s hungry. He finds it hard to tell sometimes.

Pikachu zaps him on his good ankle, glaring up at him.

She’s right. He needs to calm down. He gestures for her to come up, and scratches her cheek in apology as she comes to rest on his shoulder.

Calm down. Read his book. Maybe it would help his focus if he took notes while he read? Lyra had teased him about that once – asked if he was studying for an exam – but he didn’t see why it was such a problem.

‘Alola!’

He checks his phone. His last message from Blue was before he’d left for the expedition, and then he’d lost signal. Red’s reply hadn’t even made it by the time he managed to figure out what he wanted to say.

‘Um! Excuse me? Hello?’

Red wishes he could text him now – there’s probably some chore around the house or the Battle Tree that Red is forgetting about. Blue could remind him.

‘Hey! Mister! ALOLA!’

Red drops his phone.

He turns to see a small, cheery looking boy with dark hair pulled up into a busy ponytail. Red knows him from somewhere, but he’s hopeless with faces. The boy waves, a bit sheepish.

He says something in Unovan Red can’t parse. An Alolan Raichu (adorable, if not a patch on Red’s Pikachu, _obviously_ ) floats up to join the boy, and Red puts two and two together.

Of course. Regular at the Battle Tree. Hau, he thinks.

The boy is still chattering. Red catches a few words here and there, but Hau is speaking too quickly. The noise is white hot against Red’s already frayed nerves.

Red does the only thing he can think of. He puts a hand over Hau’s mouth.

The boy falls silent. Red retracts his hand, shoving it back into his pocket. Hau looks at him, for a moment, and then scratches his cheek.

‘Oh. Sorry,’ he says, much more slowly, ‘You speak Unovan?’

Red shakes his head, winces, and then makes a wiggly gesture with his hand. The universal sign of ‘Kind of, only a bit, sorry’.

‘That’s okay. My friend didn’t speak much when she moved here,’ he says, still very slowly. He brightens up at the thought of his friend, ‘That’s Moon. The _Champion._ She’s from Kanto.’

Red nods.

‘Um,’ Hau says, still neither leaving nor challenging Red to a Pokémon battle, so Red has absolutely no idea what to do.

‘Where’s your partner?’ he asks, finally.

Red frowns, and rubs Pikachu behind the ear pointedly.

‘Your _human_ partner,’ Hau corrects, grinning. Red frowns. Unlike Ranseigo, Unovan didn’t have separate words for Pokémon partners and romantic partners, and quite frankly he didn’t know how more people didn’t find it confusing.

Red pulls out his phone, dragging open his little-used email inbox, and then finds the email Blue forwarded. It’s his original invitation to join the expedition. He shows it to Hau.

Hau stares at it, and then up at him, even more bewildered than before.

Red remembers belatedly that the original invitation is in _kalo_ _çais_ , and Blue’s translation (for Red’s benefit) is in Ranseigo. Ah. Shit. That wasn’t going to work.

For lack of any better ideas, he just points out over the horizon.

‘Swimming?’ Hau asks. Red shakes his head, resisting the urge to smack his palm against his forehead. He can hear Mom’s voice in his head – _keep calm, honey, be patient with yourself._

Huffing, he scratches out a K in the sand with his crutch.

‘Oh!’ Hau says, ‘Kalos?’

Red nods, and tries to turn around and walk away. The boy is following him, still talking.

‘I thought it was weird. You two are always together.’

Red shrugs.

‘Is the Battle Tree still open?’

Red shrugs again.

‘How did your leg get hurt?’ Hau says, scampering around in front of him, ‘Can I sign your cast?’

 Red stops, and shakes his head.

‘I have a pen,’ Hau says, digging around in the pocket of his shorts, ‘I actually get people asking me to sign things these days, can you imagine that? Me!’

Red can’t say he understands why – as far as he understands, Hau _lost_ his Championship battle.

Hau whips out a pen. Red moves back, unsteadily, but Pikachu hops from his shoulder and stands between them, growling, her fur bristling and crackling. The boy stops, pursing his lips, but then smiles, recaps the pen, and shoves it back in his pocket.

‘Um, okay then! Hey, can I ask –‘

Ok, Red is becoming increasingly certain this kid is _not_ going to shut up and leave him alone.

He unclips Venusaur’s Pokéball from his belt and meets Hau’s eyes, just for a second, just long enough for him to get the picture.

‘Oh? A battle?’ Hau says, startled. Red nods.

‘Uh, well, okay!’

Red has battled Hau before – he comes up the Battle Tree regularly to practice – but it’s been a while. He’s always been good, but he can tell he’s improved recently. Previously, the boy had been relying on talent, which could only get someone so far. Apparently he’d taken Blue’s recommendation he study up to heart, because he’s much more strategic and clever.

He counters Venusaur’s spore set-up with his Noivern, blowing them out to sea, and then taking Venusaur out using some clever acrobatics and flying attacks. Lapras’s ice attacks put Noivern out of commission. Hau counters with Raichu, moving over the surface of the ocean with surprising speed. Lapras can’t do much to counter something that can teleport and electrify the water around her, so Red recalls her.

Charizard is a risky choice – Hau looks surprised when Red sends him out – but Red trusts Charizard’s speed in the air, and his control not to hit the water at any point. Charizard avoids the electric attacks easily, then hurls Raichu back onto the sand. Before Raichu can recover, Charizard drops down from above, raking a Shadow Claw down its body. Raichu lets out a sharp cry and drops to the sand, unconscious.

Hau has a problem a lot of young trainers do, Red thinks. A couple of their Pokémon get taken out, and they get flustered and panicky. Especially if it’s a Pokémon they have a particularly strong bond with.

With Raichu out of commission, Hau sends out Crabominable, but it’s all too obvious what he’s going to try and do. Red gestures for Charizard to get out of range, and Crabominable can’t do much more than jump around on the sand, trying to avoid Charizard’s fire attacks. Eventually, he goes down too. The same strategy works for Tauros – the boy needs some more Pokémon with vertical range in his team, or some way to compensate for so many of them being ground-bound. Hau’s Incineroar manages to take Charizard down, but mostly because Charizard is getting fatigued.

Blastoise, mostly fighting from the sea, knocks Incineroar out in minutes, and makes swift work of Leafeon as well.

Recalling his Leafeon, Hau laughs.

‘Sheesh, I really still can’t beat you,’ he says, scratching the back of his head, ‘Hey uh, any idea when the Battle Tree might be open again?’

Red shrugs.

‘Oh. Uh. Then what about when your partner’s back?’

Red holds up four fingers.

‘4pm?’

He shakes his head.

‘4 days?’

He shakes his head again.

‘4 _years_?’ Hau says, eyes going wide. Red huffs out a laugh, and then points down.

‘…Weeks?’

Red nods.

‘Oh. That’s a long time.’

Red frowns.

It didn’t _feel_ like it was going to be. Relatively speaking, four weeks isn’t long at all. If he were training a new Pokémon, four weeks is very early.

At the same time, the past couple of days have felt as though they have lasted forever.

‘Um. Can I battle you again tomorrow, then?’ Hau asks, putting his hands behind his head with a grin, ‘I’ll be around here! School’s out for winter break and all that, so…’

Red shrugs, deciding he’s going to head home for something to eat. He leaves Hau standing on the beach, blinking as though he isn’t sure what just happened.

#

He ends up battling Hau every day. The Battle Tree is deserted, and since all of the staff were expecting a couple of weeks off, they are more than happy for Red to close up shop.

He has the sneaking suspicion he isn’t being very responsible, but standing up on the platform by himself, the construction banging on around him, waiting restlessly for a challenger to approach…well it’s going to drive him sparse.

Not that there hasn’t been quiet periods before. Alola’s battle scene was much quieter when they first arrived. It was just, there was more to do, and he had Blue to talk to and battle, and he could go and explore some more interesting parts of the island on _really_ quiet days.

Now, with Blue gone and a cast on his foot, he’s basically restricted to Poni Island, and the cities he can reach by Ride Charizard. It doesn’t leave a great deal for him to do.

Hau never manages a win. Blue would laugh, watching Red completely destroy a 12-year-old over and over, but Red doesn’t see why he should let someone win just because they’re younger. Nobody improved by being _allowed_ to win.

After Hau’s latest defeat, recalling a panting Incineroar to his ball, he looks up at Red with a grin.

‘Wait,’ he says, before Red can stalk off home for lunch (and, if Red’s honest, a boredom nap). Hau fishes a paper bag from his rucksack, grinning as though he’s up to something.

‘I _brought_ you lunch today. So you can’t run off!’ he says, very stern. He fishes an oversized malasada out of the bag and holds it out to him.

Red suspects that Hau will follow him home like a lost Poochyena if he tries to refuse. Besides (and it’s Daisy’s voice in his head this time) – _if someone tries to do something kind for you, even if it’s not quite right, try to appreciate the effort._

Resigning himself to it, he awkwardly settles down on the sand, propping his crutch up against the rocks behind him. He holds out a hand, accepting the malasada.

Hau sits next to him, humming happily.

‘Um. So.’

Red eats, staring out at the sea. Even in December, the weather is still mild, and the sea warm enough to swim in. If he were allowed, he thinks, glaring at his cast.

‘Have you seen Moon around? I mean, the champion?’ Hau asks. Red shakes his head, and Hau sighs.

‘I was scared you’d say that. She hasn’t come for a battle?’

Red shakes his head again. Was she supposed to? It wasn’t like the Battle Tree really ran on a reservations system.

‘Mm…’ he says, and then tucks his knees to his chin, the malasada sitting in its paper wrapping beside him, still untouched.

Even Red can tell that something is wrong. But asking what – even if he was able to – will mean a whole conversation that he probably isn’t equipped to have.

He isn’t good with kids.

And he means it. Not like Blue. Blue always _says_ he isn’t good with kids, but they like him almost instantly. Red didn’t even get along with other kids when he was one, and now he has even less of an idea what to do with them.

Hau doesn’t need the invitation to share his woes, though.

‘I’m worried about her, recently,’ he says, ‘Ever since she won, she’s just, um. Well she’s just stayed up there in the league. Every time I go up there she’s just sitting on her throne, smiling, but looking…sort of. Well. I don’t know! Not right.’

Red shrugs. He doesn’t know what the boy wants out of him. Becoming Champion is incredibly interesting, but actually _being_ Champion is boring. That’s just how it goes.

‘She…never talked much but now she hardly ever does,’ he mutters, and then looks at Red, alarmed, ‘Not that not talking is a bad thing!’

Red gestures away his concern. He’s not really offended. He wishes he could talk more just as much as everyone else does. It’s just difficult to do when so few people will spare the time to listen.

Ah.

Okay. Maybe he should let this kid keep talking. He nudges him with an elbow as he passes his leftover malasada to Pikachu.

‘Can I tell you a secret?’ Hau asks, but he plows on before Red can as much as shrug, ‘I think she misses Lillie.’

Red has absolutely no idea who that is, but he nods.

‘She was our friend. She – um. Well, Moon liked her a lot. But then she left. And I think it made Moon sad…’ he says, trailing off, ‘I asked Gladion, but he’s busy lately, and he thinks we should just leave it.’

Red also has no idea who Gladion is.

‘But she’s our _friend_ , we can’t just _leave her_ up on that mountain by herself…’ Hau continues, and starts speaking so quickly that Red’s Unovan fails him, and he’s just listening to the kid babble on, occasionally picking out words like ‘Kanto’ and ‘journey’ and ‘Nebby’ (whatever the hell _that_ is).

‘Oh!’ Hau says, catching himself, ‘Uh, sorry. You – you’re probably not very interested in this.’

Red shakes his head. He isn’t.

‘Oh. Sorry,’ Hau says, deflating, and now Red feels bad.

Which is ridiculous, because he wasn’t interested, and he didn’t see the point in _lying_ about it.

All the same, he does feel bad. And it’s not like he doesn’t like Hau, because he finds he does. He’s a good kid, very kind to his Pokémon, patient with Red’s less-than-straightforward communication style, and he genuinely wants to learn how to be a better trainer.

It’s just that Red doesn’t know any of these people he’s talking about, and it all sounds like complicated preteen drama, so why should he be interested, really.

‘Uh. Well, that’s okay! Haha, aaaanyway. I should probably head back!’ he says, standing, ‘Um. Sorry. Don’t worry, sir, I won’t bother you any more. Um. Thank you for the battles, bye!’

Hau runs off, looking far more upset than Red was comfortable with.

#

Red doesn’t sleep well that night. He wakes early, as ever, and lets his Pokémon out to do their training routine. He doesn’t stay to watch this time – if he has to do one more round of those arm exercises he’s going to…well, not scream, but certainly _something_. Instead, he heads back in to take his Chansey egg.

Cracking it directly into a glass, he swills the pale pink goo around. His stomach curdles uncomfortably. He notices that same soreness again. Side-effect of the egg, probably. Or maybe it’s the boredom? Feeling bad about Hau?

He has no idea. It’s a waste of time to think about it.

Pinching his nose, he drains the glass as quickly as possible. He refills it with water and glugs it down, trying to wash the taste out of his mouth.

His phone buzzes on the counter. He scoops it up – he has everyone else on silent, so it can only be Mom or Blue. Considering Blue’s inability to get signal, it’s probably Mom.

To his surprise, it’s Blue. He’s sent a picture.

It’s him, dressed in winter gear, outside a cosy-looking lodge. It looks like its high on the Kalosian mountains, high enough the stars are visible even in the bad phone picture. The background is all snow and pine trees, and there’s a light dusting of snow in Blue’s hair. Sylveon is around his shoulders, her expression of wounded indignity that her master would take her somewhere so cold and uncomfortable.

The pain in Red’s stomach amplifies, and he suddenly really, really, _really_ wishes he was standing outside the lodge too.

_We got signal! At least, for the evening._

Oh, it’s already night there, Red realises. Evening yesterday or today? He’s not sure. He supposes it doesn’t matter.

Another text comes through before Red can reply.

_Holding down the fort?_

Red sits down at the breakfast bar, tapping out a message.

_Battle Tree’s closed.  
Construction and no challengers. Seemed pointless._

Blue hits back almost instantly.

_Ha! Honestly, I would have done the same. How’s the Alola weather?_

_Warm._

_Urgh, I’m so jealous. It’s FREEZING here. You’d probably love it._

_Probably._

_What are you doing with yourself, if not battling?_

_Still battling._

_What? Who? You’re not tormenting the staff again, are you…?_

_No._

_OUR CLEANER? Please don’t. I’m sick of hiring new ones because you’ve challenged them to a battle and scared them away._

_They’re easily scared._

_Says you. Then who, pal? I’m on the edge of my seat here._

Red pauses. He isn’t sure how to explain the whole situation. He’s not even sure if he knows what ‘the situation’ is.

He scrolls up, looks at the photo again, and his stomach clenches painfully.

_Can you call me?_

For once, Blue doesn’t text back immediately. Red sends another message:

_If you’re on video, I can text._

He thinks. He has never tried that. He supposes he’ll find out soon enough. Blue replies after a few seconds.

_Alright, big guy, whatever you want. I’ll head back to my room._

Red waits, listening to Pikachu shouting at Snorlax outside, and Charizard groaning as he goes through his stretches. The call comes through, and Red hits ‘Accept’ immediately. Blue’s face appears on screen, in less layers than he was in the photo, but still looking a bit rumpled and cold.

‘Hey, bud,’ he greets. Red raise a hand.

‘Taking your medicine?’ he asks. Red rolls his eyes but nods, waving an empty Chansey egg wrapper in front of the camera.

‘Good. Now what’s this pickle you’ve got yourself into?’

Red frowns.

‘I can tell there’s a pickle. You wouldn’t want to call if there wasn’t a pickle.’

Red doesn’t think this is true, but he supposes there _is_ a pickle. Taking a breath, he taps out an explanation, as best he can. It’s pretty straight-forward when puts it into words: a kid was battling him daily, then he hurt the kid’s feelings, and now the kid won’t battle him anymore.

It’s a pretty ridiculous problem for a 25-year-old man to have, he realises suddenly.

Judging by the smirk playing at Blue’s lips, he’s thinking much the same.

‘I’m not laughing at you,’ Blue tells him, immediately, ‘It’s just something I’d expect _me_ to do.’

_You’re good at this kind of thing,_ Red texts back. Blue laughs.

‘Come on, I am not. All I do is piss people off.’

_Not true_.

‘That’s – you know what, we can argue about this all day, let’s focus on your problem.’

Red nods. Seems sensible. Blue steeples his fingers, deep in thought.

‘I have a solution,’ he says, finally. Red tilts his head.

‘Apologise.’

Red thinks that is the stupidest solution he’s ever heard. Blue laughs at whatever his face is doing.

‘Come on, you think _I_ haven’t learned the value of an apology at this point?’ he says, ‘Listen, write down you’re sorry you hurt his feelings, that you didn’t mean it like that, and that you’re happy to keep battling him and helping him train. The kid will definitely come back to Poni Island, I mean, he probably feels like he needs to apologise to _you_. Just keep it on you and hand it over whenever you see him.’

Red must look unconvinced, because Blue smiles at him (gently enough Red’s heart does a weird twist), and adds more softly:

 I can help with the Unovan, if you want.’

He supposes he sees the logic, but he isn’t convinced. Even with Blue helping, any apology Red tries to write would be impossible to understand and probably only make the situation worse. Besides. Red always thought the best way to address things was with action, not words.

Action.

A thought occurs to him.

_I know what to do_ , he types. He watches Blue read it, and then nod.

‘Great, great. Not sure if I helped –‘ (Red types ‘You did’ as fast as he can) ‘ – okay, okay, you’re very welcome. I’m extremely helpful.’

He pauses for a second, before continuing.

‘Well, I guess I better get ready for bed. Big day tomorrow, Sycamore says, but he says that every night so –‘

_Wait_ , Red types, slapping hard on the breakfast bar to get Blue’s attention. Blue stops, looking at him curiously. A flush climbs Red’s neck, and suddenly he doesn’t really know how to ask for what he wants, even though it isn’t much.

‘Yooou wanna hear what I’ve been up to lately?’ Blue guesses, as he always does when Red doesn’t know how to say soemthing. Red nods, and Blue grins, clearly delighted, and the pain in Red’s stomach settles by just a fraction.

‘Well, you asked for it. So, basically I’m starting to think they just brought me on-board as a cheap translator. Ha, seriously, like half of what I do is running back and forth between people explaining things. Just the other day –‘

Red rests his chin on his hand, listening until his Pokémon return back inside, all clamouring for breakfast.


	2. Chapter 2

Pikachu doesn’t seem convinced. As they walk towards the elevator that takes prospective league challengers up Mount Lanakila, her tail swishes back and forth, clearly apprehensive.

Normally, he’d scoop her up and rub his fingers through her fur until she calmed down, but with one arm around his crutch, that isn’t possible. He settles for tilting his head, letting their cheeks touch.

He looked it up, and Mount Lanakila looks like it’s barely worth being called a victory road. It’s extraordinarily easy to walk through. Sure, the snow and cold isn’t exactly ideal for his cast, and it will probably be a pain to navigate on his crutch, but he’s handled worse terrain.

At worst, he’ll have to clamber onto Charizard’s back, but he doubts any Alolan police will be around to try and arrest him for riding an un-licensed ride Pokémon (again).

He hits the button as he enters the lift, leaning against the barrier as it takes him up.

All he has to do is find this new Champion and convince her to come down. Hau clearly missed her, so he couldn’t see what reason she’d have to say no. What business did a twelve-year-old even have, hanging out on a cold, forbidding mountain by herself all the time?

Yes, this would be very quick and simple.

The walk to the Pokémon League isn’t exactly long, but it feels like it takes a painfully long time. Wild Sneasel and Absol spring out at him, occasionally almost knocking him off his crutch. Although, after Pikachu completely decimates the first few, the rest give him a wide berth, looking somewhat disturbed. Pikachu just squeaks and rubs her cheek against Red’s.

She’s an extremely good girl, Red thinks fondly, fishing out a berry from his pocket for her.

Still, he’s gasping for breath by the time he reaches the second elevator, back and shoulders aching from the effort of dragging himself all this way. His cast is soaked, his leg uncomfortably numb and cold. He’ll have Charizard warm it up later. For now, he gestures for Pikachu to hit the button and settles down on the floor of the elevator, catching his breath back.

All he had to do now, was get through to see Moon. Easy.

#

‘I’m sorry, sir!’ the receptionist says loudly, slowly, as though Red is the dumbest person she’s ever spoken to in her life, ‘I can’t let you through! To see! The champion!’

She gestures at the poster behind the counter, showing the Island Challenge stamps.

‘You need! The Island Challenge stamps! And then you’ll fight! The Elite! Four!’ she shouts, holding up four fingers.

Red wonders if he can just challenge _her_ to a battle to make this all go faster. He shakes his head and leans across to push down her fingers. He doesn’t want to fight the Elite Four. He certainly doesn’t want another Championship title to deal with. He just wants to see the Champion herself. For a. Well, not a _chat_ , exactly, but. For something. He’d figure it out when he got there.

‘Sir!’ she says, ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

Red’s whole body is crackling with frustration. There’s too much energy in his body, and no way to get it out. He resists the urge to smack his palms hard against his forehead, bunches his hands into fists, breathes slowly. He can hear Mom in his head, gently urging him to breathe, count backwards, think about something he knows well. That’s from a long time ago – he was 12, slamming the door on reporters, both trying to scream and trying not to scream at the same time, banging his head hard against the door.

He was much better now, but sometimes the idea of banging his head hard against something until all the extra energy in his body had been expelled was so _tempting_.

He opens his eyes, looking at this woman staring at him, obviously afraid.

This isn’t going to work. He needs to be someone other than Red right now.

He tries to think what Blue would do in this situation. Blue would be able to charm his way through – flirt outrageously until, giggling, the woman simply let them through (with Red torn between embarrassment at the sheer insincerity of it, and being honestly impressed).

No, he couldn’t do that.

What else might Blue do?

Bullshit.

Blue would bullshit his way through.

He takes out his notepad and pen, opens to a clean page, and writes as clearly as he can, trying his best to make the letters legible.

_Battle Tree business._

The woman stares at that, and then looks up at him, brow furrowed.

‘Sir –‘

She pales, very suddenly.

‘Oh. Uh. Sir. You’re not –‘

‘Red! Cousin! What are you doing all the way up here?’

Red turns to see Kukui approaching him, dusting the snow off his labcoat, shirtless as ever. Red didn’t know why everyone always got on his case for not dressing for the weather when this guy wandered around like this all the time.

‘Samantha!’ Kukui says, turning to the woman and clapping a hand on Red’s shoulder, ‘Chatting to our superstar?’

‘I –‘ Samantha says. She looks like she’s going to pass out.

‘I didn’t realise – I- I don’t really follow the battle circuit, I –‘ she babbles, descending into apologies and rapid explanations too fast for Red to follow.

Red waves at her to be quiet. Mostly because she’s really irritating him at this point, but also because she was genuinely just doing her job. It’s not like he’s always the best at recognising people either, so, he can hardly judge her.

He flips the page over, writing something else.

_Don’t worry._

He stares at it. It still sounds rude.

_Don’t worry. :)_

Yep, nailed it.

He shows it to Samantha, and she looks as though she’s not going to die this day any more. He ignores her profuse thanks, deciding he was very much done with that social interaction, and turned his attention to Kukui instead.

‘Cousin! Are you here for your Island Challenge?’ Kukui says, switching to Ranseigo to Red’s immense relief. Kukui’s Ranseigo wasn’t great, but it was still easier than Unovan, ‘You need the stamps, first! Haha! Can’t give anyone special treatment!’

Red shakes his head. Why does everyone think he would _remotely_ want to win a championship ever again?

‘Ah, then what can we do for you?’ Kukui says, all cheer. Red flips the page over on his notepad and writes again.

_Moon._

‘Moon? You want to see the Champ?’ he asks.

He nods.

‘Huh. You haven’t met her already? She has never been to the Battle Tree?’

Red shakes his head.

Kukui frowns, and Red has to wonder if he’s missing something. Were they supposed to have met the Champ already? He supposes they had been half-expecting it, but they’d been so preoccupied with moving into their new house, setting up the Battle Tree, catching Pokémon for the rentals system, shooing away the Team Skull grunts who kept hanging out there at night…

Well, they’d been busy, anyway. Too busy to wonder when the new champ would give them a visit.

‘Weird. Well, we better get you introduced, cousin! First…’ he says, and then glances down at Red’s leg, ‘Should you really be out and about on that?’

Red shakes his head.

‘Your husband’s going to kill you.’

Red decides to let the husband comment slide. Last time he saw him, Kukui had kept using the Pokémon version of the word ‘partner’ instead, so if anything it’s an improvement.

Besides, he doesn’t think Blue will be _that_ mad. He’ll get why he did it.

‘I won’t say a word, cousin,’ Kukui assures him, ‘Trust me, he will find out.’

Probably. Much like his soaking wet cast or the weird pain in his stomach, he’ll deal with that in future.

‘It is your funeral,’ Kukui says, ‘Anyway, this way. I’ll introduce you to our little champion. She’s really something, I tell you.’

Red knows. He’s seen the magazine articles.          

They call her the heir to his throne.

#

The Champion’s throne is far, far too big for her.

That is Red’s first thought as she enters. The Champion’s Hall is impressive, like the peak of a mountain. His 11-year-old self would be awed by it. As is, it gives him a creeping feeling up his spine he doesn’t know how to account for.

Moon sits on it very neatly, hands on her knees, with not a hair out of place or a single crease on her clothes. She’s smiling stiffly, eyes staring straight forward. It’s the same expression she has in every magazine photo Red has ever seen of her.

On the arm of her chair is a Mimikyu.

This is all starting to feel _very_ weird.

‘Champ! Alola! How is it going!’ Kukui greets, still in Ranseigo (possibly for Red’s benefit), raising a hand. Moon stands as they move towards her, her Mimikyu hopping onto her shoulder.

‘I wanted to introduce you to one of our Battle Tree legends. This is Red – he and his partner –‘ (Wrong form of partner again, and Red sees Moon’s eyes flick across to Pikachu with a puzzled frown.) ‘- head up our Battle Tree facility! It’s down for maintenance now, but I thought you two should meet.’

Moon looks like she isn’t sure whether to wave in the Alolan style, bow in the Kantonian style, or shake hands in the Unovan style, and Red is in the exact same position. They settle on stiff, barely inclined bows.

‘You became champion when my Mom and Dad met,’ she says.

And Red has literally never felt so old in his life.

‘Well, I’ll let you two cha – aa – get to know each other!’ Kukui says, and Red really wishes that people would just sat _chat_ and _talk_ around him. He’s not going to explode.

Moon is staring at him, still with that same smile in place. After a few minutes, she turns and sits back down on her chair, still silent.

Red has planned to just figure out what to do once he got here, but now he doesn’t know. He’s used to other people filling in the silence for him. He finds he genuinely has no idea what to do with someone who doesn’t.

He looks at her and points down. She tilts her head. He points down again. She shakes her head.

Frustrated, he pulls his phone out of his pocket. At the very least, Moon is a Kantonian, and he can at least talk to her in his native language. If he can unspool the jagged thoughts in his head enough to put them into words.

Moon doesn’t interrupt, or even move. She just sits. Maybe waiting, but Red gets the feeling she isn’t even doing that. It’s more like she’d just be doing that anyway, regardless of whether Red was there or not.

The odd feeling Red had since seeing that Mimikyu increases.

Finally, he presents her the message. She takes his phone, looking a bit bemused.

‘”Are you going home?”’ she reads out, and then looks up at him. She thinks for a second.

‘Why do you ask?’ she says finally. It sounds like a perfectly earnest question – like she’s surprised he cares. Quite frankly, so is he.

Red snatches his phone back, opens the Fame Checker app, and then finds a profile. He taps open a picture of Hau and shows it to her.

‘Hau?’

He writes again, a bit faster.

_Misses you._

‘He can come up for a battle any time he wants,’ she says, a bit too cheerily for Red’s liking. He takes back his phone. It’s a pain, typing with one hand and balancing on his crutch with the other, but the only other option is to sit on the floor.

She takes the phone back, expression inscrutable, and reads out his next message.

‘”He says you have not left for a long time”,’ she reads out, and then looks at him, ‘I’m the Champion. I need to be here.’

Red frowns. He’s not sure that’s right. He doesn’t know, but it doesn’t sound like Kukui expects the Elite Four and Champion to be here the whole time.

He holds up ten fingers, and then one, and then points at her.

‘I’m 12 now, actually,’ she says, understanding him with surprising speed, ‘And what’s your point?’

He doesn’t know what his point is. When he was her age, he’d done just as much, but he can’t stop noticing how _little_ she is. Surely he wasn’t that small when he won his championship title. The idea makes him feel dizzy.

He stands there for a second and then, because he’s completely out of ideas otherwise, unsnaps a Pokéball from his belt.

She stands, still smiling.

‘Alright, a battle it is.’

To Red’s immense surprise, he loses.

Badly.

#

Red absolutely cannot sleep now.

After he gets home, he has Charizard breathe hot air onto his cast until it dries. It doesn’t look…well, it doesn’t look exactly how it was last time, but it looks better. Patting Charizard on the nose, he returns him to his Pokéball.

He tries to text Blue, but he doesn’t have signal again. Off hiking. As soon as the ‘ _Text not sent’_ message pops up, there’s a pang in Red’s chest he can’t account for. He wishes he let Blue talk for longer yesterday. He wishes he had texted back faster when Blue first arrived in Lumiose.

There’s nothing he can do about this right now.

It’s not losing that bothers him. In fact, the battle with Moon is the most interesting he’s had in a long while. He feels as though he learned a lot from the battle, and he’s already thinking up new strategies to counter Moon’s Mimikyu and Primarina.

He’s not sure what bothers him. The sight of Moon with her Mimikyu in that oversized throne, it turns his stomach. Although, that may be just because all his stomach does lately is turn.

He wishes his Mom was here. Mom wouldn’t really understand the situation, but she’d at least be able to help Red understand the way he feels about it. He could text her, but he’s not sure how to explain it, and he doesn’t want her to worry. He’s not sure if she even knows that Blue is away. She’d definitely fret about Red being by himself for the next couple of weeks.

He twists over, looking at the side of the bed Blue usually occupies. If he was here, they could make coffee and talk it out and Blue would be able to help him straighten out his thoughts. He’d be able to explain Red back to himself. Somehow, he was even better at it than Mom was. Red doesn’t even get how that’s possible.

He gets up, hopping across his room and grabbing his crutch.

There’s no way he’s going to sleep. Instead, he’s going to spend his time learning everything he can about Alola’s first champion.

#

Moon’s last name is Suzuki. She moved here following her parent’s divorce. She was born in Saffron City. She chose a Popplio as her starter, but her Mimikyu was more famous.

She was involved in chasing Team Skull out of town in a couple of places, but that seemed to be more akin to shooing a group of particularly annoying Mankey out of town, than an actual criminal gang. She was involved in…something at the Aether Corporations. Something about the former CEO, Lusamine Aether, taking ill and leaving the country for treatment.

Red can’t make heads or tails of what happened, but he can tell from all the conflicting accounts and sensationalism that nothing the press have said is the truth.

He’s texting Blue his thoughts as he goes. It doesn’t matter that the messages aren’t going through. It makes him feel more grounded anyway, even if the ‘Message not delivered’ makes him feel weirdly sad every time.

Basically the gist was that Moon began her journey and quickly discovered she was a natural prodigy. She sped through the Island Challenge with ease, filling in page after page of the Pokédex as she went. She stopped to help people and Pokémon as she went, in myriad different ways.

She got involved with something to do with the Aether Corporation.

Something about something called ‘Ultra Beasts’ which, quite frankly, sounds like nonsense. He knows a lot of people saw them, but it sounds like they’re just strange Pokémon nobody has documented before. Red has been keeping his eyes peeled for them, but he’s been so busy he hasn’t really set aside time to investigate.

He frowns. His younger self would have gotten involved immediately.

He rubs his face, stubble rough against his palm, and the feeling of being much older than he realised intensifies.

After a moment’s thought, he looks up the other two kids Hau mentioned – Lillie and Gladion. A quick search turns up a photo of two blonde children next to a tall, very beautiful woman, and a smiling man in an Alolan shirt. The Aether family and their children – the older brother, the youngest sister, the brilliant CEO, and the promising young scientist.

There’s something about the scientist dying – accident in the Aether labs. Tragic, but a freak accident. Nobody’s fault. Apparently.

Red thinks of the ‘accident’ in the Cinnabar Island Labs, stomach turning again.

This is all a lot more complicated than Red was prepared for. He feels like his decision to boot the yakuza out of Kanto age 11 was fairly straight-forward by comparison.

He thinks of how tiny Moon is, and suddenly Blue’s comments about what an insane thing that was to do make a lot more sense.

Well. In his defence. Nobody else had been doing anything.

Pikachu hops onto the desk beside him, squeaking. He rubs her between the ears and glances at the clock. Ah. Morning already.

No point going to bed now. Time to train, as best he could. And then he was going back up Mount Lanakila.

#

‘Oh, sir, you’re back!’ the receptionist woman – he’s forgotten her name – says, ‘What a nice surprise!’

Red can’t tell if she’s being nice because she still feels bad about the other day, or if she’s genuinely taken a liking to her. Doesn’t really matter either way, as long as he doesn’t have to deal with that mess again.

He spells out an ‘M’ in the air with his finger.

‘Oh. Um.’

He spells it out again, willing himself to stay calm.

‘Oh, uh, is that an M? M for Moon? Do you want to see Moon?’

He nods, jaw locked into place.

‘Ah, yes, I think I saw her come in half an hour ago. Looked a little tired, the poor dear. Just head on through.’

Red checks the time on his phone. It’s 9am. She turns up at Mount Lanakila at 8:30 in the morning? Red knows her mother lives on Melemele Island, so unless she’s leaving very early, there’s a good chance she’s not living at home any more.

He continues on, taking the staff elevator to the Champion’s Hall, leaning exhausted on his crutch.

He’s woozy by the time he gets up there, which is weird. He doesn’t usually get motion sickness or vertigo. In fact, Blue has told him previously that his stomach is ‘freakishly strong’. Why it feels so odd lately, he has no idea.

Not important, bigger issue to focus on. He needs to figure out what’s going on with Moon.

She’s in her chair again, same position, same smile, same Mimikyu at her side. She stands as he enters. Red isn’t very good at telling when people’s faces change expressions sometimes, but there’s something odd about the way she holds hers. It feels like it doesn’t change enough, but maybe he’s missing something. He wishes, again, that Blue were here.

‘You’re back,’ she says, after they stare at each other for about five minutes.

He nods, and then flicks through the pictures in his phone. He’s not sure which to use. In fact, he’s not particularly sure what his plan is. He just really needs this kid to not stay on this mountain any longer. He isn’t even sure _why_ , he just knows, deep in his gut, that if she doesn’t leave very soon, she isn’t going to be able to for a long time.

‘So. What do you want?’ she asks, sitting back down, hands in her lap again.

Red pulls up a picture on his phone, and shows it to her. She looks at it, carefully, as though assessing a new Pokémon’s IV values for the first time. Mimikyu leans over to look at it as well. After a moment, she passes the phone back.

‘That’s Lusamine.’

Right. Well. He knew that. He was hoping for…some other reaction. Maybe an explanation

He flicks to the next picture, passes it to her. The same pensive expression, and then the phone slotted back into his hand.

‘And that’s Gladion. Her son.’

Nothing else.

Red flicks to the next. He watches her face as carefully as he can, but he still can’t figure anything out from it. Yet he sees something dark snake out from the bottom of Mimikyu’s hood, curling comfortingly around its trainer’s forearm.

Moon passes it back.

‘Lillie.’

He waits. Nothing else. She stands.

‘Would you like a rematch?’

Red figures there’s nothing else for it. And he does want to try the strategies he thought up.

It’s a tighter match, this time, but Moon still manages to win.

#

Red keeps coming back for rematches. Moon stops even commenting on it. She just raises her eyebrows as he comes in.

His cast is getting…well, it’s not in great shape. It looks a bit odd at this point. He has Charizard warm it, and takes to using one of Blue’s hairdryers (an item he owns _three_ of, for some reason) on it on mornings and evenings.

But that’s fine. It seems to be basically fine, and besides, it’s not that important. Red has something to do now, and the purpose keeps him from going stir-crazy. He texts Blue about it – all the messages ending up undelivered – and it feels slightly like he’s gotten control back.

He’s not sure how much he’s progressing on his mission. Moon stays resolutely on Mount Lanakila, and on her throne. From what he’s learned, she turns up at 08:30 in the morning, leaving at 7pm. She mostly sits. She sometimes reads, or plays with her Mimikyu. Red never sees her do anything that looks like schoolwork – which is weird, her trainer’s leave is probably officially up by now. She eats a small lunch (too small, Red thinks, surely she needs to eat more than that, she’s still _growing_ ), again at her throne.

Red mostly just turns up. First he shows her the same message (‘Are you going home?’), to which Moon would give a non-committal reply. He’d battle her, and then leave immediately. Sometimes, he stubbornly shows her a picture of Lillie, or of Hau, but Moon doesn’t even particularly react.

Their battle win-loss ratio is more or less 50:50 at this point. It’s a stalemate, and a pointless one at that.

They’re midway through the day’s battle when Red’s phone goes off.

Thinking that Blue may have found some signal, Red completely abandons his monitoring of the battle and seizes it in his hands.

It’s Mom.

His shoulders sag a little as he opens the message. It’s a photo of his Mom and Daisy at some fancy teashop in Ecruteak City, Mom balancing Daisy’s baby (now almost looking like an actual human) on her knees. He thinks he sees Daisy’s husband in the background, struggling with a pram.

 _Had a family day out today! Loads of fun. :) We miss you two LOADS._  
Do let me know how you’re getting on!  
Love you lots, Mom. xxx

Something seizes in his chest. Which is weird. There’s no way in hell he would have agreed to overpriced tea in the kind of place they were at (actual tea ceremony, Mom would try to bully him into a kimono, an item of clothing he had always found constricting and uncomfortable, and there would be a lot of confusing rules Red would break in the first five minutes), with Daisy and her family (Daisy was great, but Red had no idea how to deal with her office worker husband and the baby was a baby and subsequently both boring and scary).

Still. Something about it panged, the way it used to when Mom texted him up Mount Silver.

‘What are you looking at?’

He jumps, he didn’t realise Moon was standing directly behind him, hopping about on her tip-toes to try and look at his phone. He scowls and thinks about just shoving his phone back into his pocket, but she is so insistent that she has probably read most of the message already. Besides, it’s not exactly a dark secret or anything. He passes his phone over.

She looks at it, and then up at him. There’s something wincing in her expression when she looks at the message, but she gets rid of earlier.

‘You looked excited when your phone went off,’ she says, in her usual straight-forward manner, ‘And then you looked disappointed when you looked at it. Even though this is a really nice message.’

It’s the most she’s spoken to him in days. He tilts his head, waiting. She waits too. He waits right back. Red begins to suspect this could go on for a long time.

Eventually, Moon cracks. Red tries not to feel jubilant at winning a battle of wills with a twelve year old.

‘It’s a really nice message. _And_ you’re probably a Mommy’s boy.’

He frowns at that.

He _guesses_ it’s true, but he’s always thought that was a stupid insult. His Mom is awesome. Of course he loves her.

‘ _You_ are missing your boyfriend,’ she concludes. Red blinks. Moon hadn’t given any indication she knew Blue even existed, never mind that he was away. Moon’s smile definitely changes at that – she actually looks a bit like Lyra for a second.

‘I can look up things about you as well,’ she says, passing back his phone, ‘You two are “hashtag relationship goals”, apparently.’

Another thing Red is already aware of, but thinks is very stupid. First of all, he’s not 100% on what a hashtag is, and he doesn’t care to learn. Secondly, the concept of ‘relationship goals’ strikes him as extremely poorly thought out. He’s hardly an expert – being both extremely bad with people and having only had _one_ relationship – but it seems to him every relationship is very different, so trying to arbitrarily emulate someone else’s is just not going to work.

He supposes she’s right, though. He misses Blue. He hadn’t exactly realised it, but now Moon says it, it makes sense.

Thing is, it’s not the _point_.

He shakes his head.

‘Yes you do,’ she says, and her tone is so like Blue when _he_ was eleven that Red can picture him. Five-foot-nothing, hair crunchy from the amount of gel in it, smirking, noisy, prodding Red in the chest and trying to rile him up.

But Red _isn’t_ eleven, and he isn’t going to be riled up by a preteen using the same techniques.

‘So, I’ve worked it out. You miss your boyfriend, and you’ve decided to take it out on me by trying to nag me to go home,’ she says, folding her arms, ‘I’ve figured it out, so you can leave and stop bugging me.’

This kid is _so_ annoying and suddenly Red cannot remember why he wants to help her so badly. He balls his hands into fists, trying to calm down, trying to figure out what to do next.

What would Blue do?

Hm.

Storm out in a huff, probably.

Best not do that.

What about Mom?

Sit Moon down and firmly but gently tell her it wasn’t kind or useful to lash out against other people just because she felt bad herself.

Nope, not doable.

Daisy?

Give Moon tea and convince her to cry it out.

Haha. Yeah. No.

The Professor? Nope, not a useful role model. 

…Lyra?

Well. Lyra would use _spite._

Breathing out, Red lowers himself to the floor, sitting with his leg stretched out and his crutch lying beside him. He grabs his book from his backpack and then pushes the bag behind him so he can lean against it.

‘What are you doing?’

Red opens his book and begins to read.

He can _feel_ how irritated Moon is getting, and it takes every ounce of self-control he has not to smirk.

#

It’s a successful day. Just sitting reading his book is enough to have Moon so annoyed she leaves early. Red returns the next day. Ask his question, battles, and then sits and reads in what he hopes is an appropriately infuriating silence.

It gets to 3pm the next day, and Moon snaps.

‘I’m going home,’ she announces, more to Mimikyu than to Red. He looks up, hopeful. She catches his look and turns away.

‘No, I mean, back to my room.’

He frowns.

‘…We have rooms here at the league. In case we need to stay overnight,’ she says.

They’re silent for a while longer, and then Moon sighs, looks up at him.

‘Why do you even care?’ she asks.

Red wishes he could give a good answer. It’s not, exactly, that he doesn’t have one, he just –

A million thoughts jumble up in his brain. Days and nights on Mount Silver. The cold. Fingernails turning blue. Hungry, then learning not to be. The way Mom cringed every time he left, now, like she was afraid he’d never come back. Blue joking ‘You better still be here when I get back’, but not joking, more like pleading. Don’t go again.

The way he’d thought about it being a break first. Getting his head back on straight. That he’d come back. But then he didn’t. He couldn’t. And he kept not. Until someone else stepped in.

How easily he could still be there now.

That chair is far too big for her, and this room is far too empty and cold.

There’s no way he could put that into words. If Blue was here, maybe he could, but he’s not, and Red has to just deal with what he can do instead.

He shrugs.

Moon sighs, grabbing her bag from behind her chair.

‘You are _so_ weird,’ she says as she leaves.

Red would be annoyed at that, but that is possibly the first time he’s heard her actually sound her age.

And that, he thinks, is a good thing.

#

Red sleeps well that night, wakes up in good time. He exercises with his Pokémon, as best he can. His cast isn’t looking great, and his stomach still feels off (he’s not sure the length of time he spent on the toilet, frankly, is normal), but that isn’t important.

He’s forcing his Chansey egg down his throat when the doorbell goes off. He jumps, almost dropping the glass.

Their house is not close enough to anyone for neighbours. Unless it’s staff from the Battle Tree, or Kukui, but he can’t imagine any of them are up so early. They had picked a place a good distance from anyone else, but close enough to the Battle Tree for convenience.

He doesn’t want to answer the door. He glances at Pikachu, tucking into her breakfast, and contemplates sending her.

No. No. He’s a grown man. It will be fine. If it’s anyone he doesn’t want to talk to, all he needs to do is shut the door again.

Pikachu leaps onto his shoulder as he walks towards the door. He throws it open.

A girl with a Mimikyu on her shoulder stares up at him.

For some reason, outside the context of the Champion’s Hall, it takes Red a second to even recognise her, but it’s definitely Moon.

How did she even find out where he lived?

‘It seemed as though you would turn up in the Champion’s Hall again today,’ she says, tone prim as it was before, ‘I thought it made sense to come to you instead.’

Red is too astonished to stop her when she barges past him, looking about the place. The cleaner was just in a few days ago, but Red suddenly gets the feeling she is judging how ‘Real adult’ his house is, and finding it lacking.

‘Your house is huge. I assume you have a guest bedroom?’

He nods, unable to help himself from answering a direct question, and gestures to the door at the left of the stairs.

‘Thank you,’ she says, walks into it, slams the door behind her, and Red hears the distinct sound of a lock clicking shut.

It is then that Red realises with horrifying certainty that he has entered a battle of wills with a twelve-year-old, and it is a horrible, horrible mistake.


	3. Chapter 3

None of his messages to Blue are getting through. Pacing their bedroom, he tries to call him. Nothing - the mountains of Kalos are vast and dangerous and completely without signal.

Stomach squirming, he sits back down on the bed. He wonders if he can just leave her there for the day. She might just get bored and then come out and go home of her own accord.

And she’s not doing any harm, exactly, just being in his house. His home is very much big enough to accommodate a guest without any problem.

He just isn’t sure. There’s no rules for this. He had knocked and knocked on the door, but Moon had kept it stubbornly shut. He’d heard something, quietly, through the door. Then her Pokédex’s electronic voice. And then music. Volume steadily increased until Red had been forced to flee upstairs, pressing his free hand against his ear.

He flicks through his phone, trying to find an answer.

He opens the family group chat. He usually has notifications muted – the constant barrage frays his nerves – but he wonders if he might see some insights there.

In the chat, Mom and Daisy are discussing the newest episode of some crime thriller they both like (Red had tried it, but seeing people and Pokémon suffering so much made him uncomfortable, and it was entirely obvious who the killer was _anyway_ ). The Professor occasionally weighs in, comparing it to some other show he watched when he was younger.

His fingers stray over the keys.

Mom would be helpful. Daisy would be confused. The Professor would…

Well, Red wasn’t particularly interested in _his_ opinions lately.

He closes the chat and opens his text message chain from Mom instead.

_Mom, there’s a twelve year old girl in my house. What do I do._

Within seconds, she’s calling him. He accepts the call, and Mom’s face appears on screen. It looks like he woke her up.

‘What?’ she asks.

It’s a very good question, he thinks. He hesitates, and then starts typing. It takes him a long time, and he isn’t sure the explanation is very good, but Mom just sits and waits, patient even though she’s tired.

It makes him wish he could hug her through the phone.

‘Well,’ she says, after he sends the message and lifts his phone back up, ‘First of all – you absolutely cannot ignore this.’

He tilts his head.

‘Darling, you can’t have a strange child you’re not related to living in your house. Especially when her own mother doesn’t know where she is.’

He frowns.

‘…Please just believe me when I say it doesn’t look good,’ she says finally. Red has absolutely no idea what the issue is, but he trusts Mom’s judgement on it. Okay. Don’t just ignore it.

‘Second of all, you need to contact her parents.’

Red grimaces. He has no idea how to do that. He supposes he could take the trip to Melemele Island, but he doesn’t know anything else about Moon’s Mom. Theoretically, he could wander the island and show everyone a picture of Moon until he got somewhere. It’s definitely what he would have done a few years ago, but now he’s not sure that’s practical.

‘Okay, if you’re not sure how to do that. You need to get in touch with someone who will be able to,’ Mom continues, ‘Can you think of anyone like that?’

Blue, Blue would be able to do that, but Blue isn’t here. He’s typing that, frantically, but he remembers his decision not to mention Blue’s absence only after he sends it. He sees Mom’s face darken immediately.

‘Oh, Blue isn’t around? Where is he?’ she asks.

Conscious that he has possibly gotten Blue (and himself) in trouble, Red explains.

‘Oh, a research trip? Well, that sounds wonderful,’ she says, voice a little strained, ‘And he left you by yourself?’

Red sighs. He’s an _adult_. He can take care of himself. He did it for almost a decade on one of the most inhospitable places on the _planet_. Why does everyone think he’ll starve to death left in their comfortable Alolan home alone for a little while?

He gestures for Pikachu to join him, and she zips up to his shoulder, nuzzling his cheek. He looks pointedly at the camera.

‘Oh I _know_ your Pokémon are here, I know you can take care of yourself. I’m sorry, I’m being irrational,’ she says, and then sighs, ‘I just wish either of you had told me…you know I worry.’

Which is why neither of them had mentioned anything.

‘…Actually, come to think of it, why didn’t you go along?’ she asks, laughing a little, ‘A trip around the Kalosian mountain range would suit you down to the ground.’

…Oh boy.

Well, he can’t not tell her now.

‘ _What do you mean you broke your leg!?’_

#

After apologising profusely to his mother for not keeping her up-to-date, Red figures out who he should contact. It’s not as though there’s any other options, really.

Within the hour, there’s another knock at his door. Red doesn’t think they’ve ever had this many guests. He opens the door to find Kukui and a pretty woman in a long, patterned skirt standing there, both smiling in a strained sort of way that reminds Red of his own Mom, way back when Blue brought her up for a visit.

‘Hey cousin! Good to see you,’ Kukui says, in Ranseigo again, ‘Quite a mess we’ve got here, huh?’

Red nods, not sure if he’s being blamed. He doesn’t think this is his _fault_ exactly. And, well, he did at least get her to come down from the Champion’s Hall.

‘Anyway, this is Moon’s Mom, Chie!’ she says, introducing the woman behind him. She steps forwards, shaking his hand with a smile. A Meowth peers out from behind her skirt, tail swishing.

‘So lovely to meet you! I remember when you beat the Indigo League all those years ago,’ she says, bowing, ‘You know, my daughter was a really big fan of yours when she was younger.’

Red finds that incredibly hard to believe, somehow.

‘She was! It was always such a pain trying to find merchandise for her birthday, but she got very into Sabrina afterwards, and that was much easier to shop for.’

Should he apologise for that? As far as he knows, there were plenty of prints of his Hall of Fame photos, and plenty of drawn stuff (although he couldn’t understand why so much of it drew him with the physique of a cheese grater).

He settles for shrugging, as usual.

‘Right, well. I’ll go have a chat with her. Where is she?’ Chie says, unperturbed by Red’s silence. Red points her towards the guest bedroom. She walks towards it, Meowth on her heels, knocking gently on the door.

‘Moon? Sweetheart, it’s Mom. And Meowth! We missed you –‘

A hand tugs on his forearm.

‘C’mon, cousin,’ Kukui says, dragging him away to the kitchen, ‘Let’s give them some privacy.’

Red would very much like to hear what they talk about, but it doesn’t seem like Kukui is going to give him much of a choice. He drags Red into his kitchen, glancing about with a strange look on his face.

‘Little messy in here!’ he says cheerfully. Red rubs the back of his head. The cleaner is due in tomorrow, and Blue isn’t here, so he didn’t see much point in tidying. Plus, it was awkward trying to pick things up hobbling around on his crutch.

…Still. Looking at the pile of grimy dishes in the sink, the glasses (still stained pink with Chansey egg residue) on the countertop, and, yes, that’s a pair of his jeans on the floor. Kukui’s Rockruff sniffs them, then looks up at Red, somehow managing to look very judgemental.

 ‘So. Hm. How do I say this?’ Kukui says thoughtfully, ‘Well, okay, here it is. You don’t look well. Honestly. Look ill, if I’m going to tell you the truth, cousin.’

Red looks up, alarmed. Does he? He isn’t sure. He doesn’t really look in the mirror much. He doesn’t feel great, but he assumed that was just boredom and the pain in his leg.

Kukui scrutinises him. Red has always thought of Kukui as a young man, but looking at him now, Red is suddenly struck by the realisation that he is dealing with a Real Adult. Someone who can be called ‘Dad’ without anyone laughing.

‘If you want to stop by ours for dinner, don’t even think twice about it, cousin,’ he says, very carefully, and then his tone brightens up, ‘My wife is a _terrible_ cook, but I make a mean chili. We’d be happy to have you. In fact, we can always come round here and make something. It’d be no trouble.’

Red doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just turns away and puts on a pot of coffee.

‘Great idea!’ Kukui says, unperturbed, ‘I think we could all do with some caffeine right now. You know what? You keep an eye on that, I’ll help your Pikachu tidy up a little.’

#

Kukui and Pikachu make quick work of bundling up the dirty clothes scattered around, tossing them in the hamper for the cleaner to deal with tomorrow. Red shoves the grimy dishes into the dishwasher, and clumsily rubs down the surfaces as best he can with one hand.

It looks better. Red wonders how many of these minor chores Blue is doing without Red even noticing, and resolves to be more helpful in future. He tends to think of these kind of chores as a bit pointless, especially considering they hire someone to come by and do them once a week, but he finds he _does_ feel better afterwards.

The coffee made, he pours out three cups. Two regular mugs for himself and Kukui, and a tiny bowl full of cream for Pikachu to lap up. Not good for her, but she _does_ like it, and she deserves a treat for cleaning up.

‘Well, I think that’s a touch better,’ Kukui says, ‘Now we just gotta wait to see what Moon’s going to do.’

Red nods, sipping his coffee as Kukui talks endlessly about the research he’s been doing in his lab recently, looking into possible relations between Z-moves and Mega-Evolution. It’s interesting enough that Red actually jumps when Moon’s mother rejoins them, looking a bit frazzled.

‘Chie! How’d it go?’ Kukui asks. Chie shakes her head. Trying to look busy, Red pours her out a coffee as well. She accepts it, but just holds it without taking a sip, gnawing at her lower lip.

‘She says she wants to stay here for now,’ she says, ‘I’ve – I told her she can’t just intrude on a stranger’s life like this, but she won’t come out.’

Red thinks he could probably get one of his Pokémon to break down the door and drag her out. He writes this down and passes it to Chie. She laughs.

It wasn’t really intended as a _joke_ , but sure.

‘I don’t think that will help,’ she says, grimly, ‘Oh this is _such_ a mess. I thought she was having so much fun on her journey! She seemed as though she was making lots of nice friends. That boy Hau has been around just about every day asking if she’s home…’

‘Hey, she _was_ having fun!’ Kukui says, putting an arm around Chie, ‘She was having so much fun, she probably just doesn’t want her journey to end. A lot of kids have problems adjusting to normal life after their journey, especially if they got as far as she did.’

Red nods along, trying to look remotely as though he’s helping. Like he’s not _completely_ out of his depth.

‘Oh but this –‘

‘Is extreme, but listen, it’s not _that_ unusual!’ Kukui says, with a gesture, ‘You know what we should do? Wait a while, have dinner here, and see if she’s ready to come home by the end of the day. Is that okay with you, Red?’

Kukui is looking at him. Red wants very much to say no, all of you get the hell out of my house this second, but he knows fine well that’s not really a reasonable option. Besides, he’s managed to get himself _involved_ now, and he should see it through.

So he nods.

‘Alright, let’s see what we can cook up with – oh.’

Kukui’s face falls as he opens the fridge. He opens the freezer next, frowning at the bags of mixed frozen vegetables in there.

Now that he thinks about, Red isn’t sure he’s eaten anything aside from cereal bars, protein shakes, and steamed vegetables since Blue left.

Kukui looks at him.

‘Let’s, uh. Go get you some groceries, hm, cousin?’

#

Chie insists on making a huge batch of curry for everyone, setting Red to work chopping onions and Kukui to deep-frying the tofu. She chatters merrily the whole time, as though there is nothing about this situation that is remotely strange or unusual.

The curry is good, if not as good as his own Mom’s, and they leave a plate outside of Moon’s door. Later, the plate disappears. Even later, as Kukui leaves, the plate is back outside the door, practically licked clean.

Chie doesn’t leave, and Red can tell she wants to stay the night. He knows the gentlemanly thing to do (the thing Mom would tell him to do) is offer his bed and crash on the couch.

Yet the idea of someone else sleeping on his and Blue’s bed makes him feel snappy and territorial in a way he doesn’t want to interrogate very much, so he fetches a spare blanket and pillow from the cupboard, and leaves her on the couch for the night.

#

‘Moon, honey, it’s Mom again. Are you coming back out today?’

Red sits on the stairs, listening. He can hear Mom telling him not to eavesdrop in his head, but he can also hear Blue, whispering ‘Come on dude, let’s get a bit closer and figure out what’s going on’. Blue wins.

He can’t quite make out what Moon says through the door.

‘Are you not heading up to the Champion’s Hall?’

Moon, again indecipherable. It sounds like a no.

‘Are you sure? I know, we wanted you to come back but this…’

‘I told you I’m _fine_!’

Red heard that just fine.

Again, Red is reminded of Blue when he was a kid, and the memory (ten years old, storming out when the Professor had told him off about something, snarling at Red’s mother on the way out, Red standing back, watching it all unfold) makes the ground feel uneven beneath him.

He hears Chie moving away from the door and tries to scramble to his feet and back up the stairs. He stumbles, smacking his crutch hard against the wall, and would have fallen if he hadn’t managed to grab the banister in time. Chie looks up at him and oh fuck, she looks like she might cry, he _really_ does not want her to do that. He hates the sound of crying.

‘I suppose you heard that. Looks like she isn’t coming out this morning,’ she says, and rubs her eyes with her hand. Red stands there, feeling very useless.

‘Listen, I need to head to work. I think the best thing to do is carry on as normal,’ she says, ‘That includes you.’

Weird thing to say, considering his leg is broken, the Battle Tree is closed, Blue is gone, and Red’s normal has been completely swept out from under his feet.

‘I’ll pop by again tomorrow to see how she feels,’ she says, taking her handbag from the couch, ‘I really am very sorry about this.’

Red shakes his head. She didn’t tell her kid to take up residence in his house. If anything, Red had kind of started it. He had just wanted to help.

Although, honestly, he wasn’t sure what he had been thinking. He could help if it involved a Pokémon battle. This kind of complicated stuff was completely beyond him.

He tries to write that down for her, as best he can, but he’s not sure his explanation makes sense.

When Chie reads it, she smiles, but it doesn’t look sincere.

#

The next few day are extremely weird.

Red finds that if he tries to think of Moon as a Pokémon that needs his help, he feels much less edgy about having her in his house. He cooks her some breakfast on the morning, leaves leftovers from the previous night’s dinner in front of her door for lunch, and make dinner on the evening. He flies over to Hau’oli City to stock up more fully on groceries, wearing a pair of Blue’s sunglasses and his earplugs. He doesn’t really like wearing glasses – the ear things always dig into the side of his head uncomfortable – but he also really doesn’t want to be recognised.

Moon is eating, at least. He never sees her leave the room, but she takes plates into her room, and in the morning leaves a neat stack of them by the door, all empty.

Red buys a 2 litre bottles of water and leaves that by her door as well. She takes it in, and Red refills it dutifully whenever she puts it back outside.

One night, he is fairly certain he hears her crying.

He goes to bed early, rather than deal with it. He can _feel_ Charizard judging him as he does so, but it’s not like he can exactly talk to her through the stupid door.

Chie comes around every morning. It’s always after Red has finished his morning training, taken his medicine (still gross), tried to force some breakfast down his throat. She stands by the bedroom door and talks to her daughter through it, too quietly for Red to hear.

Red texts Blue about it the whole time, but messages are still not going through. Red finds himself staring blankly at the last picture Blue sent for longer than he’d be willing to admit.

A couple of days after Moon arrives and starts this whole weird routine, Red gets a visitor in the afternoon. It can’t be Chie – she left this morning – and although Red would like to hope it was Blue, home early, he knows Blue would have texted him.

Answering the door, he finds himself hoping it isn’t just another child who is going to take up residence in his home.

Behind the door, he finds Hau. He’s holding a box of something, looking very sheepish.

‘Um. Hi. I heard Moon was staying here?’

Red lets him in, feeling as awkward as the boy looks. Hau glances down, and then up at him, and then grins. He then thrusts the box into Red’s hands, bowing as he does so. It looks like he’s just copying what he’s seen Kantonian people do on TV, and Red has to stifle a laugh.

Hau says something so fast that Red can’t make it out at all. He tilts his head. Hau takes another breath and repeats it, slower this time.

‘I’m sorry for bothering you. I asked my Tutu and he said I can’t just treat every older trainer like a free tutor but thank you very much for humouring me as long as you did,’ he says, and it sounds rehearsed. Like something his grandfather has told him to say. Hau breathes out, and smiles again, ‘Anyway, Tutu said to invite you and your partner for dinner some time. He makes really, really good Lomi Magikarp.’

Red stopped eating meat a while ago, but he nods anyway.

They stand there for a few more seconds, but Red remembers that he, really, owes an apology as well.

He fishes out the apology Blue drafted for him from his emails and pushes his phone into Hau’s hands, looking up at the ceiling.

Hau reads it for a few seconds. He looks up at him. Red shrugs.

Before Red can do anything about it, Hau hugs him around the waist. Red stands with his arms out, really hoping the kid will let go of him sooner rather than later.

‘Ah, thank you!! I’m sorry I didn’t give you a minute!’ he shouts, and then says something in Native Alolan that Red has _no_ hope of understanding. He stands there like a statue until the kid finally releases him.

‘Okay! I’m glad _that’s_ sorted,’ Hau says, so cheerfully it’s like nothing had happened at all. Red is going to have to tell Blue he was right. He would be really insufferable about it, of course, but he deserves to know.

‘Okay, can I see Moon? Where is she? Is she upstairs?’

Red gestures to the guest bedroom door. Hau frowns up at him.

‘She’s really not coming out?’

Red shakes his head.

‘Well...okay, I’ll just talk to her through the door!’ Hau says, and then rushes off, shouting, ‘Moon, it’s meeee!’

He sits cross-legged in front of the door, chattering non-stop to her about the recent happenings in Iki Town, how school had been since he started again, something funny his Incineroar did yesterday, a little girl who asked for his autograph on the beach the other day. It doesn’t sound like Moon is even replying.

Red looks at the box of malasadas in his hands, then at the child chattering quite happily at a door.

For lack of any better idea, Red decides to take a leaf out of Daisy’s book. He goes to brew some tea.

#

It’s dark by the time Hau leaves, yawning and slumping in his cross-legged position in front of Moon’s door. Red books a ride Charizard for him, half because he seemed too sleepy to quite do it himself, and half because he frankly did not want the visit to turn into a sleepover.

Red is collecting the pile of dishes and teacups from beside the door, when he hears a gentle knock from the other side.

‘Red?’ she says, and he realises dimly it’s the first time she’s used his name, ‘Are you there?’

Red stares.

‘One knock for yes, two for – well, if you’re not there, you don’t need to say no.’

Red knocks twice.

‘Ha ha. Very funny.’

He knocks once.

‘Um. I just wanted to say. Thank you. Mom said you’re the one who’s been cooking and leaving me tea and water and stuff.’

Who did she think was doing it? The food fairy?

‘And Rotom has been nagging me to say thank you so. Thank you. I appreciate it.’

It isn’t really anything special. He’s sure anyone in his position would have done it. All the same, Red knocks once and hopes that will do as a “You’re welcome”.

‘…Hau says you’re actually a really nice person.’

Red furrows his brow at that. He doesn’t think he’s done _anything_ to deserve that title.

‘Hey,’ she continues, ‘Can I ask you something?’

He has no idea where this is going. He knocks once anyway.

‘…What happened to your leg?’

Okay, he wasn’t expecting that.

He stares at the door for a moment, and then checks his pocket – no pen, no paper. He’s not sliding his phone under the door because quite frankly she’s twelve and thus can do terrifying things to electronic devices that Red doesn’t understand.

He raps three times on the door and heads upstairs to retrieve his notepad from the bedroom, his crutch clunking hard against the stairs as he goes.

‘What? What did that mean?’ she says, and then as he head upstairs, he hears her grumble, ‘It’s like having a conversation with a knock-knock joke.’

He returns, clutching a notepad in pen in his free hand. Realising there is no way he can write and stay upright at the same time, he slides down against the wall, stretching out his broken leg and curling up his good one as something to write again.

In all honesty, he doesn’t know why more people haven’t asked. Maybe people think they just can’t ask him anything. It’s not like the incident was a secret or anything. It was mostly just. Dumb.

He draws a skull on a sheet of paper and shoves it under the door.

‘Team Skull?’ she repeats, ‘They broke your leg?’

Red shakes his head and then, remembering himself, knocks twice.

‘Then what?’

He scribbles another word to go under the door.

‘Accident?’ she repeats, ‘Okay, please tell me the full story. I can wait.’

Red shakes his head. Fine. If she really wants to sit around waiting that long. He sets to trying to write it out, as quickly and clearly as possible.

Sometimes, kids in Team Skull liked to hang around the Battle Tree after dark. None of them ever qualified to take part, and Blue said they took that as a personal offense. So they just hung around, being annoying. Mostly just doing normal kid things – smoking, drinking, the occasional bit of mis-spelled graffiti.

Red and Blue occasionally swung by to scare them off. Red didn’t really need to do much (he’d battled Guzma not long after he’d gotten there and trounced him thoroughly enough that now Team Skull were pretty terrified of him), and Blue just had to threaten to call the cops to make them scatter.

One night, they’d managed to get onto the tree itself. They were just hanging around with their Pokémon, drinking beer and being noisy. Both of them could hear them from their house. They’d went out to clear them out as normal.

On the way up, Red had heard a high-pitched Pokémon’s cry. Ahead of them, sitting around on one of the battle platforms, a bunch of Team Skull kids had been picking on a Jangmo-O, tuggin on its scales. They wouldn’t let it get away, even though it was clearly scared, snapping at them and lashing its tail.

Something hot and angry tugged at his nerves at the sight, and Red had ran towards them without thinking.

On seeing him approaching, the kids had leapt up, a lot of them knocking over the beer and dropping the cigarettes they had with them, their Koffing bellowing in alarm.

An alarmed Koffing, a frightened dragon-type, alcohol, and lit cigarettes.

Not a good combination.

Red had barely had time to grab the Jangmo-O until the Koffing blew the platform up, sending them all to the ground.

He writes all this as best he can and feeds the sheet through the door. He listens to the rustle of paper as Moon reads it, wondering what she thinks.

‘What a bunch of idiots,’ she concludes.

Red knocks once. He has to agree.

‘What happened after that?’

If Red’s honest, he doesn’t remember the details. She clicks her tongue at that answer, shoving the paper back through the door.

‘Vague is fine,’ she says.

His memories of it are foggy. He was in a lot of pain, but also none at all, somehow at the same time. Light and floaty in his body, until he wasn’t, until he was very much _in_ his body and teary-eyed from agony. He remembers Blue yelling and crying, something he’d _never_ seen him do before (and never wants to see again).

Thankfully, everyone was fine. No major, lasting injuries. The platform wasn’t that high up, and Koffing explosions, while they often looked impressive and destructive, were more like wind storms that induced nausea. Especially in Alola, where the air was so clean.

Trying to explain this to Blue, half-laughing, on the way to the hospital had _not_ been appreciated. He’d earned a punch in the shoulder and then Blue had reburied his face in his hands, still shaking.

He was also pretty sure that Blue had yelled at the Team Skull kids so badly that one of them had started crying. Although whether that was Blue, the Machamp looming behind him, or the very, very angry Pikachu on his shoulder was anybody’s guess.

Red only gets about half of that down. He keeps remembering different things - weird little pictures of the inside of the chopper, the paramedics, the Jangmo-O snuffling his face, the trainer that came by later to pick it up – and that makes it hard to keep the story coherent. He reads it through one more time, decides that is as good as it’s going to get, and feeds it through the bottom of the door.

‘Your handwriting is awful,’ Moon comments. Red tries not to let that hurt. She’s only _twelve_ , he reminds himself. And it’s not like Red has the best track record with tact himself.

As she reads, he hears her laugh, quietly.

‘Wow,’ she says, ‘Well. That’s not what I expected.’

He waits for a second.

‘…Hau thought you got injured fighting an Ultra Beast barehanded.’

Red raises his eyebrows. He wouldn’t even know how to throw a good punch, really, so he doesn’t know why he has this weird reputation.

He knocks twice, and Moon laughs again. He notices that she sounds pretty snotty.

He writes a quick message and shoves it under the door. She sniffs as she reads it.

‘No. I’m not sick.’

Ah. Crying again. He’s pretty sure crying so much isn’t healthy.

He doesn’t want to ask about that, but there is something he wants to ask about. He draws a question mark on a page and shoves it under the door.

‘Er. You want to know more about how I’m not sick?’

Two knocks.

‘…You want to ask a question?’

One knock.

‘Well. I guess I got to ask you something. So okay.’

He already has the question written, so he shoves it under the door immediately. He hears the crackle of paper as she takes it and unfolds it.

‘”Why here? Spite?”,’ she reads out dutifully, ‘Here? You mean, your house?’

One knock.

She sniffs again.

‘Um. I didn’t. I didn’t come here just to prove a point to you. I mean, not entirely…’ she says slowly. Red folds his arms and waits.

On the other side of the door, she hears Moon take a few deep breaths herself. He thinks she’s moving around inside the room. It sounds like she’s opening and shutting drawers, pacing. He hears the Rotom speak, in Unovan too electronic and fast for Red to make sense of.

‘Do you have a pen?’ she asks, finally.

Red pokes a spare pencil under the door. She snatches it up, and he hears frantic scribbling on the other side. He feeds through a spare sheet of paper, just in case she needs it. That makes her laugh, for some reason.

Eventually, she feeds through a piece of paper. Red takes it. Her handwriting is very neat, her strokes very precise.

_I planned to go back to Mom’s. So, there you go, you made me feel guilty enough I decided to try going back. I hope you’re happy._

_I was on the way! Really. And then I was flying overhead on Toucannon’s back, and I could see our house._

(Red decides it’s probably not the time to tell her off for riding around on an unlicensed Pokémon.)

_Mom was outside with Meowth, just talking to Hau’s grandpa._

_There were still boxes on the balcony. Mom STILL hadn’t finished unpacking._

Still is underlined a _lot_.

_So I freaked out and turned around before anyone saw me._

_I didn’t want to go back to the league. So I just went to the first place I thought nobody would come get me._

And that was him, apparently.

_I didn’t think you’d call my Mom._

Red sits, staring at it for a second. He doesn’t get it. He circles ‘Mom STILL hadn’t finished unpacking’ and writes a question mark next to it.

‘Urgh, it’s – she –‘ Moon replies, stuttering over her words, and then concludes sulkily, ‘I know it’s stupid.’

He knocks twice.

‘Look, it – I. I don’t know how to explain okay. Just made me feel like maybe we’re not going to be here very long.’

She sighs.

‘I know it doesn’t make any sense.’

He waits, petting Pikachu curled up in his lap, but she has nothing else to add. After a long while, she says.

‘I just don’t want anything else stolen from me.’

Red doesn’t even understand what that is supposed to mean. He waits, but she says nothing for a long time, until finally:

‘I’m going to bed.’

And then nothing.

Eventually, Red gives up, deciding he should probably head to bed as well.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, Moon’s Mom turns up with a batch of homemade melon pan. Surprised, Red accepts one for his breakfast. It’s golden and soft, browned across the top and dusted with sugar. Its tastes perfectly sweet, and Red has sudden flashbacks to being eleven, eating melon pan from the Pokémart for just about every lunch and breakfast on his journey.

He looks at her, and tries to say ‘Thank you’ with his face. She laughs.

‘You’re very welcome,’ she says, ‘I think Moon misses Kanto a little sometimes. I hoped this may cheer her up.’

Red has been cooking Kantonian dishes for dinner every night (mostly because they’re all he knows how to make), but he’s not sure that’s done anything. He shrugs.

He stares at the back of Chie’s head as she sets down the melon pan and searches for a plate in the cupboards. As far as he can tell, Chie is a perfectly nice woman who cares a lot about her daughter. She doesn’t seem like she’d ‘steal’ anything from Moon. Or that she’d intentionally do her daughter wrong.

He would say he can’t understand why Moon wouldn’t want to go home but – (riding on Charizard’s back, scaling Mount Silver, his PokéGear buzzing again and again at the bottom of his bag) – he knows that it isn’t always straight-forward.

‘Do I have something on my face?’ Chie asks, twisting around to look at him. He looks down, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Tapping a few keys quickly, she passes it to him.

‘Move?’ she reads out, ‘Oh, am I in the way?’

He shakes his head, snatching his phone back. He wants to ask if Chie is going to move out of Alola, or if they moved around a lot, and what happened with the divorce, if there’s any reason Moon might think she will be forced to leave, but it’s all vague and tangled in his head. He can’t get it out. Finishing, he slams the phone back into her palm. She reads the text on screen, squinting, and then rubs a hand over her mouth, shaking her head.

‘I’m sorry. I really don’t know what you’re trying to say here.’

Of course she didn’t. It was practically gibberish. He smacks his palm hard into his forehead, once, and then twice, and then Pikachu’s squeak brings him back to earth.

‘Oh, oh, no, I’m sorry, please don’t do that!’ Chie says, alarmed. She looks wide-eyed and frightened. He forces himself to breathe in. The last thing he wants to do is frighten her. He is fighting hard to be an adult in this situation, but he’s not sure what to do.

He writes an apology ( _Very sorry)_ and shows her it. She smiles, uncertain. He writes again, heart in his ears.

_I’m not good with words. I get frustrated sometimes. I scared you. I’m sorry. Won’t happen again._

‘Ah,’ she says, nodding. It looks like she may understand. Or maybe she has just decided to take pity on him and move on.

He _really_ wishes Blue were here.

‘I’m going to talk to Moon for a while, are – are you sure you’re alright?’ she says, tilting her head, ‘You look unwell.’

People keep saying that to him.

He nods, gesturing for her to go to the door. He set up a dining room chair next to it this morning, assuming people were probably sick of sitting on the floor or standing in front of it. She smiles at him, and then goes off to talk to her daughter.

#

He’s barely gotten Chie out of the door when someone else arrives. It’s Hau again, this time accompanied by a blonde teenager with a bad haircut and a worse attitude. Lusamine’s son.

‘Heya! We’re here to see Moon again,’ Hau says, tugging on the taller boy’s sleeve, ‘This is Gladion.’

Gladion just huffs, as through an introduction is far more than Red is owed.

Did he look this pissed off when he was a teenager? Weirdly, he thinks it might be possible.

‘Good afternoon,’ Gladion says eventually, hands in his pockets, ‘You run the Battle Tree, right?’

He nods.

‘Any idea when it’ll be up and running again?’

Red shrugs. Gladion sighs.

‘Alright, I’ll go talk to Moon. _Somebody_ needs to talk some sense into her,’ he says, and strides right past him. Hau grimaces and looks up at Red, scratching his ear.

‘I’m sorry about him. He thinks he’s really cool.’

Red nods, as though that is any kind of explanation, and Hau rushes off to rejoin his…friend? Whatever.

He goes to prepare some drinks (Roselia leaf tea for Moon, juice for Hau, and…well, probably coffee for Gladion, he looks the type), feeling vaguely as though he has began running some kind of bizarre daycare. Huffing a laugh, he texts that to Blue.

Messages still weren’t getting through. It was weird – their texting history had been so heavily weighted by Blue talking in the past, and now it’s basically one long screed of him talking. Blue will probably find it funny when they actually go through.

Well, too late to do anything about them now. He puts the drinks on a tray and lets Charizard out of his ball to take them over, following behind on his crutch.

The conversation at Moon’s door is in Unovan, but Red hesitates in the hallway anyway, listening in.

‘You can’t stay in there forever –‘

Gladion.

‘Yeah, you think Lillie wants you to –‘

Hau.

‘Well, she’s not here.’

Moon. Her tone is perfectly calm, even polite, but there’s an edge to her voice that Red has become familiar with.

‘She hasn’t went to _Mars_. She’s in Kanto. She’ll –‘

‘Be back, I know. Everyone says as much,’ Moon replies, still perfectly pleasant.

There’s a moment of silence.

‘She needed to –‘

‘Leave, I know.’

‘She’s trying to help our –‘

‘Mother, yes, I’m aware.’

‘Moon!’ Gladion snaps, ‘Will you please stop _interrupting_.’

Another silence.

‘Well,’ Moon says, ‘It’s hard not to. When you’ve heard the same things a million times.’

Red coughs. Hau and Gladion twist around to look at him, peeking out from behind Charizard’s wing. He gestures to the tray of drinks in his Pokémon’s claws.

‘Oh, um, thank you Mr Red!’ Hau says, taking his juice. Mr Red. When did he become old enough for _mister_ , he wonders.

‘This coffee smells excellent,’ Gladion says, despite glaring at it as though he suspects Red may have poisoned it.

‘It’s from Kalos, right?’ Hau asks, grinning. Red nods. It’s Blue’s favourite blend.

Come to think of it, he wonders if he’ll be annoyed at Red for using it on some random kids. Then again, it’s almost like he’s showing off long distance. Plus, Blue does legitimately enjoy getting people to try his favourite things. He’d probably appreciate it.

‘What are you smiling at?’ Gladion asks, narrowing his eyes at him. Red waves off his concern. He pats Charizard’s shoulder and turns to head back into the living room. He’ll read some more of his book before he makes the kids lunch.

#

Gladion leaves first, citing some work he needs to do over at Aether Paradise. Hau stays a while longer, talking more quietly, too quickly for Red to follow, until he too is too tired to stay.

He thanks Red in slightly mispronounced Ranseigo on the way out, and Red nods at him. The kids have somehow made a massive mess. There’s plates and crumbs from their grilled cheese sandwiches everywhere, and Hau has somehow splattered ramen broth up the wall. Sighing, Red leans on his crutch and gestures for Pikachu and Charizard to gather them up.

Despite the fact all he’s done is a half-hearted work out, cook, prepare drinks, and listen to some kids chattering away in the next room, he’s absolutely exhausted. His head hurts, his stomach hurts, and he feels a too hot for the mild Alolan winter. He could lie down on the floor and sleep right here.

There’s a tiny knock on the other side of the door.

‘Red?’ she asks.

He knocks back once.

‘Are they gone?’

One knock.

She sighs.

‘I’m making everyone upset, aren’t I.’

He won’t lie. One knock.

‘…Figures…it’s so unfair though.’

Three knocks.

‘...Yes no?’ Moon repeats, confused. Red sits down on the chair, not without some effort, and picks his notepad up front under it. He scribbles a single word and shoves it under the door.

‘Why?’ she reads, ‘Is that going to be three knocks from now on?’

One knock.

Moon laughs. She sounds as tired as Red feels, even though she’s probably done even less.

‘It’s just. Nobody’s upset at _her_. Even though she left us. But I’ve managed to upset _everyone_ ,’ she says, speaking progressively faster, as though this has been bottled up in her for a long time,‘And – and it’s been like that the whole time. Moon, do this. Moon, fight these people. Moon, don’t get this wrong. We know you just got here, and you barely speak the language, and you have your own journey to think about, but think about _her_. Do it for her sake, Moon!’

Red is thoroughly lost. He knocks three times.

‘Why?’

Two knocks.

‘Who?’

One knock.

‘…Lillie. I – I’m talking about her.’

He scribbles a note and shoves it under the door. She clicks her tongue as she reads it.

‘You know who she is.’

He rolls his eyes. Yes, he knows she’s Lusamine’s daughter, Gladion’s sister. She ran away and lived with Kukui for a while. Something something Cosmog, something something Ultra Beasts, whatever, that isn’t important.

He has no idea what she was to Moon, though. And that _is_ important.

‘…You’re just going to sit there until I talk. I can hear you breathing,’ she says, ‘You sound terrible, by the way.’

Oh great, now he even _sounds_ terrible, apparently. Red wasn’t even aware that was possible for him. This kid is so irritating and the sooner she gets out of his house the better.

He hears Moon sigh, and then a thump. He can imagine her on the other side of the door, sitting balled up with her knees under her chin. She sniffs.

This kid is so small and Red desperately wants to do whatever he can to help.

‘Lillie travelled with us,’ she mumbles, ‘She was running from her Mom, who is a _terrible_ person. She hurt Lillie, she hurt Gladion, she tried to hurt _me_.’

Red waits, hears another sniff.

‘A-and, Lillie, uh. I basically. I don’t know. I ended up her bodyguard, sort of? She couldn’t battle, but I could so. I stood by her side and made sure nothing bad happened to her.’

She laughs a little, shaky.

‘I mean, I was doing my Island Challenge too, but that didn’t seem to matter that much to anyone. What mattered was _her_ , how she was doing, how she was going to overcome her Mom, how –‘

Moon is definitely sobbing now, and Red wants to run. He wants to go upstairs and leave this. The noise is white hot sandpaper against his bones, and it makes his own throat close up too.

Wrapping his hands tighter around the arms of the chair, he stays put.

‘I sound like a brat, but. I just, my whole Pokémon journey ended up about her, and then – then she just left!’ she says, shouting the last word so sharply that Red jumps. Pikachu leaps into his lap, nuzzling into his palm. The soft texture of her fur, the low static against his skin, it keeps him in place, steady.

‘She – she left. To take care of her Mom, who didn’t even deserve it. We had a whole party for me becoming Champion and she pulled me aside and told me she was leaving. Even at my _party_ it ended up about her and – and I know she didn’t _mean_ it to but…’

She trails off completely. She sniffs and coughs. She sounds like she can barely keep talking. Her throat sounds dry.

Red draws a teacup with a question mark next to it, and slide it under the door.

Moon laughs, the noise hoarse and scratchy, and knocks once. Grateful for the break himself, Red struggles up and heads to the kitchen. He prepares another cup of tea and brings it back, held unsteadily in his free hand. He sets it down and knocks again.

‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘Can you. Um. Can you turn around while I get it?’

Red huffs but knocks back yes, and then walks a few steps away. He hears the door creak open behind him and he can’t help but glance back.

He honestly doesn’t mean to see her, but he does. A red-eyed girl with messy hair, in pyjamas that looked a little dirty and worse-for-wear, grabbing a cup of tea before slamming the door closed again.

‘O-okay. You can come back now.’

Red sits down.

‘I’d read loads about how everyone always discovers who they are on their Pokemon journey,’ she says, and takes a noisy sip of tea, ‘And after a _year_ of listening to Mom and Dad fight and being caught in the middle, I was _so_ excited for something to be about me for once. A-and then it wasn’t. It was about Lillie.’

Another sniff.

‘I hate her,’ she says, but it sounds like she means the opposite. Possibly both, at the same time.

He tells her as much.

‘Shut up,’ she snaps. Red shakes his head. That only means he’s correct.

‘Urgh,’ she says, sounding a bit woozy, as though she’s cried hard enough to make herself sick. Red hasn’t done that since he was _much_ younger than she is now.

‘Sorry,’ she says finally, and falls quiet. It feels as though he needs to tell her something. Something comforting. He has no idea what, so he just scribbles the first thing that feels right.

 _This won’t matter in a year’s time_ , he writes, and is certain that that is true. Most things don’t matter in a year’s time, especially at twelve years old.

He slides it under the door. She hears her pick it up, hard enough to crumple the paper.

‘Well, it matters to me NOW!’

Oh boy. Wrong thing to say. Very, very, very wrong thing to say. He’s scribbling an apology, frantic, when she hears something hit the wall behind him and shatter, the noisy jagged against his ears.

‘No, stop writing! Go away! Okay, just leave me alone. You don’t get it,’ she snarls, all hot adolescent temper, and Red cannot get away fast enough.

#

The next morning, Red finds shattered pieces of teacup in a drinking glass outside her door. There’s a note attached, writing shakier than her usual neat script.

_Sorry._

He suppresses a sigh, taking it. He doesn’t really have the energy to write anything back. He barely slept last night, feeling as though his head were pounding, getting up to use the toilet every five minutes. Maybe Kukui is onto something. Maybe he is getting ill.

No time for it. Needs to give his Pokémon their morning exercise. Need to prepare for Chie’s visit in the morning. Kukui texted to say he’d swing by with his wife and some groceries in the afternoon, too, so he needs to be ready for them. Need to keep busy, keep moving, hope Blue hits a patch of phone signal soon.

#

Alola is always warm. Even in winter, when every local complained of the chill, it was still 25 C – a mild summer day back in Kanto. Even so, Red thinks, this is ludicrous. He can’t seem to cool down. He’s took a cold shower, lay against Lapras for a while, and now he’s sucking cold water directly from the tap. It’s way too hot.

He wishes he could just lounge around his underwear. He normally would, but there’s a _kid_ in the house. Even if she doesn’t leave her room, he still feels like he needs to be decent.

As soon as he figured out Moon might be here a while, he even threw out the wine Blue had at the back of the fridge, and the bottle of lube in the bedside cabinet. You know. Just in case? He didn’t want her to sneak out, rummage through their stuff and end up…traumatised?

Blue’s probably going to be annoyed at that, actually.

Whatever, he’ll pay for them, he thinks, head thumping.

‘Red? Hello? Red? Are you there?’

He has no idea how long Moon has been calling for him, but she’s being very loud. They haven’t really spoken since their fight the other day. He has half a mind to ignore her, but then he has a sudden, horrible thought of her having some kind of accident and being hurt or something, unable to get herself out of the room, and it propels him over to the door.

‘Red?’

He knocks once.

‘…Are you alright? You were breathing kinda funny…’

Her voice is very small suddenly. He knocks once, and settles himself in the chair, glad to be off his feet. Pikachu follows, carrying a glass of cold water awkwardly between her paws. He accepts it, smiling, taking a sip.

‘Okay. Um. I’m sorry about the other day,’ she says, and then before Red can be properly touched by the sentiment, ‘It was a stupid thing to say, though. Of course it’ll matter in a year’s time. It was my _Pokémon journey_ , it’s like, one of the most important things that’ll happen in my life!’

Oh good grief. Red finds a fresh page of his notebook, rubbing his hair away from his face. He writes surprisingly quickly, despite the pain in his temples. He shoves the note under the door.

‘Wh – what do you mean that’s a load of crap?’ she stutters, and then adds, tone indignant, ‘And hey! You can’t swear around me. You’re a _grown-up_.’

He laughs at that, writing another message.

_Your Pokémon journey being how you find yourself, and being the most important thing in your life._

_That’s what I think is a load of crap._

Looking at his words, he gets a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. It looks more like something Blue would write.

Horrible penmanship aside, obviously.

He shoves it under the door. She takes it, and is quiet for a long time.

‘…But it’s what everyone says.’

It’s true, Red remembers hearing that as a kid too. And it is important, to a lot of people. Most people remember their journey fondly, even if they only got as far as hiking to the next town and back for a gym badge.

At the same time, it’s something a lot of people find a bit of a let-down. There’s so much build-up to it, and so many movies and TV shows around going on your journey for the first time, and finding yourself, and having some big adventure. It’s no wonder kids go in with sky-high expectations and then are less-than-thrilled with the muddy, uncomfortable reality of camping for days and walking for hours.

He supposes that’s not quite right in her case, though. She _did_ have that big adventure everyone dreams of.

He twists his pen between his fingers, trying to think of how to say what he means, especially since he isn’t even sure what he means.

_It’s not_

No.

_When you’re on your journey -_

He keeps trying, scribbling out as he goes, tearing out the sheet he was working on and moving onto the next.

Huffing, he decides to just keep it simple.

_It would kind of suck if the best thing that ever happened to you happened when you were eleven._

It’s not very eloquent, but it’ll do. He shoves it under the door.

Behind the door, she laughs, but it’s a little forced and awkward.

‘What, so better things have happened to you since?’

One knock.

‘Sheesh.’

They fall quiet for a moment, and then suddenly Red remembers something Chie said, back during her first visit. That feels like a very long time ago, somehow.

He slides the message under the door.

‘Wh – hey! Who told you I used to be your _fan_?’ she says, sounding disgusted with the very notion.

_Your Mom said._

‘Traitor,’ she mutters, ‘And listen, I was _really_ little.’

Red waits, expectant. He’s always found his fame mostly weird and uncomfortable. Occasionally how wrong other people are about him is funny, but mostly it’s just weird. Like they’re talking about a completely different person Red has never even met and doesn’t really understand, but is expected to live up to somehow.

This, however. Is extremely funny.

After a moment, Moon sighs.

‘Okay, so I thought you were like. The coolest thing even when I was a kid,’ she says, sounding as though it physically painful. Red restrains himself from pointing out that she is _still_ a kid. Somehow he doesn’t think that would be appreciated.

He knocks thrice.

‘I don’t know. I think it was like, I saw this old film about how you took down the leader of Team Rocket, and then there were all these crazy news reports of you training up on Mount Silver alone, and how you’d taken a vow of silence, and that you were this martial arts expert and had caught all the legendary birds, and I just, I thought that was _awesome_. I wanted to do that when I was old enough for a trainer license. I wanted to go off and become a Pokémon master and be so cool and powerful I didn’t even _need_ to be a part of the normal world any more. It would just be me and my Pokémon. Nobody else. And nobody else’s problems.’

She falls silent, sounding as though she’d been keeping that bottled up for a long time. Possible since she first laid eyes on him.

He slides another note under the door.

_So what changed?_

‘Well…you came back and went to the World Championships in Unova. At first I was so excited. I got up really early so I could watch the tournament live.’

She smacks her lips, sounding as though she’s trying to think of the best way to phrase this without hurting his feelings. At least she’s _trying_ , he supposes, mostly just amused at this point.

‘And you showed up, and I guess you were cool, and your Pokémon were awesome but it was like…’ she trails off, clicking her tongue, ‘You didn’t look like the unstoppable, ultimate trainer. It was like. Oh. He’s just some guy with a really strong Pikachu.’

Red rubs the back of his neck. That isn’t incorrect, really. It’s actually sort of refreshing to hear someone actually say it.

‘And then that whole thing about you hooking up with your rival came out and I was like, urgh, he really _is_ just some guy.’

Red laughs as he tries to take a sip of water, almost choking.

‘And then you turned up at my Champion’s Hall just to annoy me,’ she finishes, deadpan.

Red knocks twice. It wasn’t _just_ to annoy her.

Another thought occurs to him. He writes another message.

_You are chatty._

_Hau said you barely spoke._

_Trying to copy me?_

‘Urgh, _no_ ,’ she snaps, and for a second Red thinks he’s managed to stumble right onto another pubescent nerve, but she calms down faster this time, ‘It’s really embarrassing. Promise you won’t tell anyone?’

He knocks once.

_‘Promise.’_

Another knock. How many times does he have to say it.

‘Not even your boyfriend, okay? Not even him.’

He hesitates. It’s not as though he literally tells Blue _everything_ , but he would if he asked, so the idea of something being off-limits is weird. He supposes if its Moon’s secret, he shouldn’t say anyway, really. He knocks.

‘…Okay. I didn’t talk much because, well. When I got here I didn’t really speak much Unovan.’

Red waits for more.

Nothing more comes.

Is that it?

He already _knew_ that.

‘…That’s really embarrassing, isn’t it?’ she says, ‘Everyone thinks I’m really cool and composed, but really they only thought that because I only understood about half of what everyone was saying.’

He knocks twice.                                                                 

‘How is it _not_ embarrassing?’ she demands, somehow offended at him being nice to her. Red generally isn’t good with people, but lately he thinks he understands kids even less than he understands adults.

He just thinks it’s very easy for people to get the wrong idea about each other, that’s all. It doesn’t really say anything about her.

They sit for a second, and then Red decides he needs to ask something else. He doesn’t want to, because he doesn’t think she’ll take it, but it’s the responsible thing to do. And, for once, he needs to be the responsible one.

_Are you planning on going home soon?_

He hears her breath catch.

‘I-I want to. Really. I’m just –‘

Stuck, he thinks.

He tries to think what Blue would do. Before he can, she pipes up again.

‘You know what, though? I think I’m. Uh. Kind of doing this so my Pokémon journey doesn’t end,’ she says, and then laughs, a little shakily, ‘Isn’t that weird? Like if I just _don’t go home_ , I’m still on my adventure, even though I’m just in this room all the time.’

Red considers telling her that it has to end at some point, but he can tell she already knows.

He doesn’t know what to do, but he doesn’t feel too badly about it. She sounds better than before, and that’s at least _something_.

‘Hey,’ she says, ‘…You know. You should go to bed early.’

He knocks three times, and hopes his knock conveys _‘Uh, why are you telling me what to do, young lady?’_ somehow.

‘You really are breathing kinda weird. And Kukui and Mom both said you don’t look well lately.’

He guesses he still doesn’t feel great. Focusing on his body, there’s still a pounding behind his temples he can’t shake, he’s sweating more than he probably should be, and his mouth is dry, even though he’s been drinking water nonstop all day. His stomach has settled, but he hasn’t really been able to get anything down him since morning.

Raising a hand, he knocks once.

‘Good,’ she says, suddenly the calm, composed Alola Champion again, ‘Good night, Red. And uh. Thank you.’

Red knocks thrice, going for ‘You’re welcome’, and then reaches for his crutch. With perhaps more effort than was normal, he hefts himself up, and heads upstairs to bed.

#

The snow in the Kalosian Mountains is knee-high and burning hot, searing through the fabric of his jeans. The walk here has been endless, and at some point he got separated from the others, separated from his Pokémon, and the falling snow is only getting heavier.

He coughs, something wet and squirming fighting in his throat.

Against his will, he drops to his hands and knees, the snow leaving red welt welts in his bare hands. Mount Silver is never this hot.

The thing in his throat convulses, and he falls completely, rolling onto his back. Something is pressing weight down on his chest, maybe trying to get the squirming thing out, maybe not but –

A fuzzy paw slaps him across the face. Red jerks awake, coughing, to see Pikachu on his chest, her huge eyes full of concern.

For a second, Red thinks he’s seeing double, but the other creature on his chest is Moon’s Mimikyu.

It squeaks as Red looks at it, and darts away, whatever’s under that cloak skittering and crackling.

He sits up, head spinning. The floor is wobbling. His whole body is drenched with sweat, and he can hear his heart beat in his ears, a sensation that only makes his stomach lurch more.

He swallows, but his throat is bone dry. Okay, water. He needs water.

At first, Pikachu won’t listen, keeps looking at him, even as gestures for his crutch. Huffing, in no mood to deal with this, he clicks his fingers and looks at her firmly. Her ears twitch, all worry, but he’ll deal with that as soon as he has had a drink and can think straight. As soon as he’s just had a bit of water, he’ll do everything he can to help her, but for just this once he can’t put her first.

Pikachu hops down from the bed and then returns with the crutch. He takes it, rubbing her between the ears gratefully, already sorry to be so sharp with her. She makes a low noise, still worried. In a moment, he tries to communicate, don’t worry, I’ll get to it.

He gets up and heads down the stairs, head still spinning. He practically falls down the last few steps, only catching himself in time because Pikachu lets out an alarmed squeal.

In the kitchen, he finds a glass. There’s his medicine and Chansey egg to take, but he needs a drink first. Filling the glass (hands shaking, why?), he takes a deep gulp. Okay, okay, that’s…better? Maybe? He’ll take his medicine next.

As he lays out the pills and today’s egg on the counter, something convulses on his stomach. He can feel something travelling up his gullet. He shoves the glass aside and hangs his head over the kitchen sink, whatever was inside his stomach coming out. Pikachu is hysterical now, running around his ankles, and he wishes she would calm down.

He tries to stand up straight, assure her he’s fine. He tries another drink, walks unsteadily towards the fridge. Maybe if he just stands with the door open and cools down.

He nudges the door open with his crutch, but then he slips. Trying to catch himself, on the counter, he stumbles to his knees, head pressed against the shelf of the fridge. He’s still too hot, but the cold air feels _incredible._ He’s dropped his crutch though, he needs that. He sits up, trying to reach for it, and then feels another wave of nausea.

Shit, he needs to –

Too late. He leans forward, hands against the smooth kitchen tile, and vomits again.

Everything blurs, dims, and then suddenly he hears another voice, high and worried.

‘Red! Red, are you okay?’

‘Red – Pikachu, calm _down_ , I-I’m trying to help.’

‘ _Kzzzrt! Kzzt! Kid! I’m calling an ambulance! We can’t deal with this ourselvezzz.’_

‘Oh, of course! Thank you, Rotom! Red? Hey, c’mon, s-sit up…’

Red is just trying to figure out how he can tell them all to stop making such a fuss about nothing, when he loses consciousness completely.


	5. Chapter 5

The next thing he knows, Pikachu is sleeping on his face.

It isn’t an unusual situation. In fact, it’s an old routine. He’d shoo her off and then she’d budge a few inches to jam her butt in Blue’s face instead. Blue would wake up, swear, and go dump her back in her basket before crawling back into bed. Red would need to spoon him until he stopped complaining.

He shoos her off. The pale, sterile ceiling of a hospital room stares back at him.

Last night comes back to him in a sickening rush – vomiting in the sink, on the floor, the paramedics fussing over him, Moon talking in high, quavering Unovan the whole time, Pikachu snarling and just about electrocuting the staff until she was allowed to ride in the ambulance out of her ball.

He rubs a hand through his hair. He’s been in an ambulance far too often lately, considering he’d went the past 25 years without being in one at all.

He sits up, shoulder twinging. The room is quiet and bare but the for the bowl of Pokémon food on the floor and Red’s Pokéballs lined up on the shell, neatly labelled.

His cast is white and bright and new again. Not misshapen from damp. Not scribbled all over by Battle Tree staff and Kukui and just about every random Alolan they ran into on the day.

To his surprise, the sight makes him a little sad.

‘Ah, you’re up,’ says someone, in Ranseigo.

The door opens and a Kantonian, or maybe Johtoan, woman walks through the door. She’s tiny and brisk and immediately reminds him of Mom. He feels just an inch safer.

‘Well, you gave us quite the scare! I’m Dr Takeda,’ she says, ‘How are you feeling?’

She stares at him expectantly. At his silence, she raises her hands and makes some funny shapes with them. As he continues to just stare, she tries again, different shapes now.

Oh. Sign language. He shakes his head, trying not to blush, and then mimes writing something down.

‘Ah, my mistake,’ she says, finding a pen and pad of paper in a drawer somewhere. The letterhead is stamped _Tapu Fini General Hospital,_ with the horned shell-shape of Tapu Fini stamped in the corners. The pen she finds sits awkwardly in his hand, the surface too smooth and slippery, and the nib against the paper is too harsh. Even the ink is all wrong – too wet and smudgy. He does his best with it.

He only has three words to write, after all. And, if he unfocuses his eyes, he can pretend she’s his Mom, which makes talking to her much easier.

_Fine.  
What happened?_

The doctor clicks her tongue. Next to her, her Blissey looks even less impressed, somehow.

‘That’s what I’ve spent the past few hours finding out, young man,’ she says.

Red is amazed how Moon makes him feel around 300 years old and then with a few words this woman has made him feel roughly 6.

‘So, first of all. We rehydrated you, cleaned you up, and my Blissey settled your stomach,’ Doctor Mom says, resting a hand on her Pokémon's head. It chirps, proud of itself, and Red smiles at it. It did a great job.

‘ _And_ , I changed this,’ she declares, gesturing to his cast, ‘What on _earth_ were you doing to it? Out in the snow?’

He nods, a bit embarrassed now to think about it. When she put it like that, it _did_ seem reckless.

‘…For the sake of my sanity, I’m going to pretend you’re joking,’ she says, ‘While you’ve probably pointlessly extended your time in the cast, it doesn’t seem you’ve done any real damage.’

Red tries not to look annoyed at that. He was going to have to have the stupid cast on for _longer_ now? Urgh. She raises an eyebrow at his expression.

‘It might be good for you to pick up some sedentary hobbies.’

 _Boring_ , he writes.

‘Well, I can’t tell you what to do. What do I know about the lives of former Pokémon champions,’ she says, rolling her eyes. It’s the first acknowledgement that she even knows who he is. Red isn’t sure he conceals his surprise well. He must not have, because she smiles.

‘Oh, I don’t follow the whole battle circuit, not then, not now. But I _do_ remember Team Rocket, and I do remember it being quite a relief to have them taken care of,’ she comments and then twists her face, ‘Although even then I wasn’t thrilled it had to be a _child_ who did it.’

Red would normally protest it didn’t matter who did it, as long as it was done. Lately, he’s a little more inclined to agree with her.

‘As for your stomach…’ she trails off, and then looks at him, ‘I think it may interest you to know, that Chansey eggs are actually quite toxic when eaten raw.’

Red’s eyes widen and he writes frantically, not caring that the characters were a messy.

_I read that they’re completely safe._

‘Yes. If you’re a _Pokémon_ ,’ she says, ‘Are you a Pokémon, young man?’

He looks down at the notepad. Shakes his head.

‘Well, as it is, it’s frankly incredible you didn’t get sick faster,’ she says, ‘Judging by the amount of wrappers we found in the frankly _overflowing_ garbage, you’d been taking them like that a long while.’

He reaches up to fiddle with the lip of his cap, remembers it isn’t there, and settles for tugging on his hair. After a second, he writes something else.

_Do I get to leave soon?_

‘Tired of me already?’ she asks, ‘Oh, don’t look so alarmed. Yes, we’ve sorted out the worst of it. You can expect to have some rather unpleasant poos – yes, dear, poos – over the next few days, and you should steer clear of spicy foods, but given the gentle treatment, your stomach should be fine. We’ll keep you for a few more hours to make sure you haven’t managed to poison yourself any other way first, though.’

Red nods. He can’t really protest.

Now that he thinks about it, he’s pretty sure that those Chansey eggs _did_ have warning labels on the packets.

‘Oh, here,’ she says, and then hands him a clear packet with a black oblong inside. His phone. She also passes a charger, the cord neatly tied up with a little elastic band.

‘It was out of charge when the paramedics grabbed it. Why don’t you set it on charge? I’m sure plenty of people will want to know you’re alright,’ she says, tone much more gentle now. He nods, plugging into the slot beside his bed and setting the phone on his bedside table. The Silph Co symbol flashes up on the screen as it begins to reboot.

‘Well, if it’s alright with you, I’m going to see if we have the results of those tests yet,’ she says, heading towards the door, ‘I’ll tell your daughter she can come in to see you on my way out.’

His what now.

Moon bursts through the door. She’s still in her pyjamas, albeit with her purse on her shoulder, making her look very odd. Her eyes are red-raw, dark hair sticking up in in every direction, the messy bun she had attempted doing absolutely nothing to help. Mimikyu hops in behind her, and Rotom hovers by her shoulders.

He raises a hand to wave hello, but before he can, she practically jumps across the room, throwing her arms around his shoulders and bursting into noisy tears.

‘I’m so _s-so-sorry!’_ she wails, the noise far too high and loud, her arms way too close, and all Red can do is tense, his arms held stupidly up in the air, ‘I – mmngh, I’ve been intruding on you all this time and you’ve been doing all this stuff for me! And then they wouldn’t let me into see you so I had to say I was your kid because you look too old to be my brother and I think the staff thinks Kantonians all look alike anyway but then I couldn’t get in anyway and you’ve been so busy worrying about me that you got _sick_ and it’s all m-m-my faaault!’

Pikachu pushes herself between them, shooing Moon into the seat by his bed. She sits, Mimikyu hopping into her lap, and rubs her eyes with her sleeve. Red breathes out, relieved to have all _that_ out of his space, and then writes a few messages, clearly and carefully.

  1. _It isn’t your fault. Don’t worry._
  2. _Please do not hug me suddenly like that._



‘O-oh? You don’t like hugs?’ she says. He grimaces. Underlines the word ‘suddenly’. Realisation dawns in her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘I should have asked. I won’t do it again. I was just so relived you were alright.’

He taps ‘Don’t worry’ and draws a smiley face next to it. She laughs, hugging Mimikyu tight to her chest. Rotom comes to rest beside her, quietly saying something in Unovan that Red doesn’t quite catch.

She looks up, swallows, and then glances at his leg.

‘Hey. Um. Can I sign your cast?’ she says, pulling a marker out from her bag, ‘I’ve. Sort of wanted to the whole time.’

Strangely, Red finds he doesn’t mind at all. He nods. Leaning over, she gently signs her name. Neatly, not too big, as though she wants to make sure other people can sign too.

He twists his head to look at it. It looks nice – she’s managed to incorporate the kanji for her name together with the Unovan letters very nicely. She grins at him, sheepish and proud at the same time. It feels like she’s been dying to show that off.

‘I’ve been practising my autograph,’ she admits.

 _Blue still does the same thing. Yours is nicer, though,_ he writes, and she laughs.

As if on cue, Red’s phone buzzes back to life. He takes it.

He has a _lot_ of missed calls and messages.

The majority of them are from Blue.

He opens the newest messages.

_Red, what the hell is going on?_

_I just arrived back in Dendemille Town and my phone about exploded?? How has the Champ ended up in our house?_

_And then I missed a call from the hospital!? Is your leg okay?? What’s going on?_

_Are you okay?? Do NOT just ignore this message._

_I’m not leaving this hotel until I get hold of you._

‘Haha, you’re in trouble,’ Moon sing-songs. Red shoots her a dirty look. Before he can do anything, his phone goes off again in his hand – a video call from Blue.

‘Uh,’ she says, getting up off her chair, ‘I’ll. Let you have this conversation in private.’

She leaves with such speed that Red can’t help but think he _really_ must be in trouble.

He sits up, and answers the phone.

Blue’s face, far paler than usual, fills the screen.

‘You’re in one piece! And not on a mountain!’ he exclaims, loud and cheery enough to hurt Red’s ears. For a second, Red is confused by his good mood (he was certain he’d be either angry or upset), and then he notices the camera is shaking. Red realises with a pang of guilt that Blue is probably trembling.

 _I’m sorry,_ he writes, faster than he’s probably written anything.

‘You _better_ be,’ Blue huffs, flicking hair out of his face, ‘And you probably owe Professor Sycamore an apology too. He had to deal with me while I was freaking out.’

Red nods solemnly, committing to apologising to Sycamore next time he has a chance. Blue sits down on what looks like a hotel bed, Sylveon leaping onto his lap and pawing at the phone, mewling intently at Red. She looks like she’s lost weight. So has he. Red is going to make sure they both eat plenty when they get home.

‘So,’ Blue says, tone perfectly cheerful, ‘Care to tell me what happened and why I _shouldn’t_ kill you?’

Red grimaces. Yeah, there it was.

_Did you know raw Chansey eggs can make you sick?_

Blue frowns.

‘What? That’s not true.’

Ha! See! Even if Blue had been _home_ , he’d have probably ended up sick anyway!

Wait, that’s probably not something to celebrate.

‘Oh, what are you smiling at?’

 _They’re safe._  
If you’re a Pokémon.  
Which I’m not.

_Despite what some articles online say._

Blue laughs, a little shakily, and then shakes his head.

‘No, no, wait. I’m still pissed, don’t make me laugh,’ he says, rearranging his face to look stern, ‘So, I read your texts. Let me get this straight: you offended a 12-year-old boy, so instead of just apologising like I said, you tried to drag the Champ down from her perch, she moved into our guest bedroom out of spite, and you ended up in a battle of wills that ended with you poisoning yourself?’

Yes, well, when it’s put like that, Red feels very silly.

However, that _is_ fairly accurate.

He nods. Blue groans, rubbing his free hand through his hair.

‘Red, I love you, but you’re going to put me in an early grave.’

He stops dead, realising what he’s just said, heat rushing to his face.

‘I – urgh, stop _grinning_!’ he splutters, but Red can’t. He shakes his head, taking enough pity on him to give him a break on it for now. Blue sighs, leaning back on his bed and trying to dissuade Sylveon from batting at his phone.

‘So, how’s the kid?’ he asks, face still bright pink.

_Better.  
I think._

And then, because he’s been bursting to ask Blue about this.

_I don’t really know why I needed to help her so bad._

Blue smiles, but there’s something a bit odd about his expression, like he knows something Red doesn’t. Which, considering the topic of conversation, is probably true.

‘You’re not sure why you felt the need to help a child prodigy trainer with a reputation for not speaking much, who had isolated herself on a cold mountain and refused to come home despite the fact a lot of people missed her?’

 _I know someone needed to_ , Red stresses, because of course, hearing about the poor kid in such a bad situation, who wouldn’t want to help? That’s not the point.

_I’m good at battling, not people. Or feelings._

_So I think I mostly made it worse._

_Don’t know why I needed to do this._

Blue sighs.

‘I don’t get how you’re the smartest guy I know, but something this obvious can fly over your head,’ he says, ‘Because she’s _you_.’

Well that’s stupid.

_No, she’s not._

‘Seriously? That isn’t what I meant,’ Blue replies, huffing out a sigh, ‘I mean she’s a lot _like_ you when you were a kid.’

_I think she’s more like you._

‘…Really?’ Blue says drily.

_Yeah. She’s a real brat._

‘I knew you were going to say that,’ he says, rolling his eyes and ignoring Red’s smirk, ‘Look I mean, obviously seeing this kid having the same problems you were struck a chord. And being Mr Hero Boy, you couldn’t just let it lie. Even though it’s not something you’re as much as a natural at as raising your Pokémon.’

Red sits for a second. He’s not sure how much that is true. It makes sense, sure, but as usual Blue makes him sound a lot more selfless than he actually is. A lot of it was probably just boredom, being stuck in a cast with the Battle Tree near inoperable, and Blue out of town.

Before he thinks too hard about it, he sends off another message.

_I missed you._

He watches Blue’s face as he reads it, fluttering between a series of complicated expressions that Red can only just follow – surprise, embarrassment, and then an awkward smile.

‘Ha, well, of course you did. Who _wouldn’t_?’ he says, preening. Red rolls his eyes, making sure Blue can see that on the camera.

‘Well,’ Blue says, clearly thrown off, ‘You don’t need to miss me much longer. I’m flying home soon.’

Red’s eyes widen. He scrambles to write a follow-up message.

_Don’t cut your trip short early for me._

‘Pal, that is _not_ what I’m doing. You’re not that special – wait, stop typing whatever snarky-ass response you’re typing, stop it, stop it right now.’

Red stops. It’s no fun if Blue has already figured out what he’s going to say, anyway. Blue breathes out, shaking his head.

‘Sheesh, do you not check the calendar? The expedition is over, right on schedule. I’m heading home!’ he says, and then laughs at Red’s blank expression, ‘Did you seriously not realise? Tch. You couldn’t have missed me _that_ much.’

_I did._

‘Hmph, suppose the eight billion texts you sent me say as much…’ he mutters, but he still sounds a little sulky. Red thinks he has an idea why. He just thinks it’s kinda dumb he has to say it at all, but whatever.

 _I love you too, you know_ , he writes, which feels so obvious he barely thinks it needs to be said. Still, he wants to make sure Blue knows. Sometimes Red is pretty sure Blue finds it hard to believe. Red has no idea how that’s possible.

‘Y-yeah, well, of course you do. Who _wouldn’t_?’ Blue says, the cocky flick of his hand rather ruined by how pink his face is.

_You made that joke five minutes ago._

‘Oh shut up.’


	6. Chapter 6

It doesn’t particularly surprise him that Moon follows him back home. What does surprise him is that there are other people in his house when he returns.

In fact, there are quite possibly more people in his house than there have been since they first moved in.

‘See! I told you all he was going to be fine,’ Burnet says, as he walks into his kitchen. Hau leaps to his feet, although the blonde boy stays firmly on the floor beside him (Red suspects that he came at Hau’s behest, rather than any particular concern for Red’s welfare).

‘You’re both okay!’ Chie exclaims, leaping to her feet, the colour gone from her usually sunny face. She lurches forward, arms wide, and Red tenses himself for yet _more_ unwanted physical contact, but Moon all but hurls herself between them.

‘Mom! Don’t!’ she says hotly, ‘Red doesn’t like hugs like that!’

Chie steps back, embarrassed, and occupies her hands with scooping up her Meowth from the floor.

‘Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ she says, rubbing Meowth behind the ears, ‘Either way, I’m glad you’re alright.’

‘You gave us a scare, cousin,’ Kukui says, grinning, and then in an undertone, adds, ‘Me and the wife cleaned up the mess immediately. Don’t worry - the kids didn’t see.’

Red would prefer that _nobody_ saw how much he’d barfed in his own kitchen, but he’s grateful all the same. He nods, fiddling with his hair.

 ‘Mr Red!’ Hau interrupts, and it takes Red a second to deal with the sudden swerve into Unovan, ‘I didn’t know you _could_ get sick.’

‘Sure he can,’ Moon says, with a couldn’t-care-less shrug that is so familiar Red has to bite his lip to avoid laughing, ‘He’s just some guy, after all.’

‘Well, we’re all here,’ Chie says, clapping her hands, ‘I think I should fix up some dinner.’

‘Are you even hungry?’ Moon says, staring up at Red with an uncertain expression, ‘With your stomach…’

As if just to make a point, Red’s stomach chooses that moment to grumble loudly. He nods.

#

He says goodbye to Kukui and his wife at the door, both of them thrusting their numbers at him, insisting he get in touch if anything comes up, and that he and Blue should come around for dinner one night. Gladion is already half-way back towards the Battle Tree by the time Hau is finished with his goodbyes, although not before he leaves a spiky signature on Red’s cast.

Eventually, they’re gone. It’s just him in the hallway, leaning on his crutch, mentally and physically exhausted to his very core. He had stepped out for twenty minutes through dinner, taking a break from the noisy in their room, but the evening has still left him exhausted.

And it’s not even over yet.                                                                                                                                                  

In the kitchen, Chie is putting dishes into the dish washer and wiping down the countertops.

Outside of the kitchen, Moon is leaning against the wall with Mimikyu bundled in her arms.

There’s an extremely obvious topic floating between the pair of them, and Red doesn’t want to be the one to broach it.

Yet, as he keeps reminding himself, Blue isn’t _here_ to do that for him. It’s exhausting and terrifying, but Moon needs help and he’s the only option.

He nudges her, and she looks up, as though surprised to see him. Before she can see anything, he nods meaningfully towards Chie’s back.

‘I _know_ ,’ she says, voice muffled by Mimikyu’s hood, ‘I know I should go home. I know it’s…it’s stupid, because I’ve been out of this place now. I’ve. I’ve done it. It should be easy now.’

Red shakes his head.

‘Urgh, you’re so understanding. It’s _really_ annoying,’ she huffs, ‘I think I liked you better when you were irritating me on purpose.’

He shrugs. He’s not _trying_ to be understanding. He’s just being honest. There’s not really a good reason something should become easy as soon as you do it once. A lot of things are hard for him on the millionth time round, and he’s only recently started to learn to not beat himself up about it. He hopes she can learn sooner.

She sighs, and Mimikyu jitters its entire body against her. It is trying very, very hard to be comforting.

‘I’m. I’m going to go to talk to her. I have to tell her I’m not ready to go home yet,’ she says, and then looks up at him, ‘Will you. Uh. Go in the other room while I do it? I just don’t really want anyone else around…’

Red gives her a thumbs up. If anything, he’s relieved. For a second, he thought she was going to ask _him_ to talk to her.

#

For the second night in the row, Red is jolted awake earlier than normal.

This time, though, it’s not his body overhearing, or a nightmare, or his stomach churning. Instead, it’s the clatter of a door opening, the thunk of a heavy case being dragged up the front step.

The sound of a very half-asleep curse word.

Red shakes Pikachu awake, gesturing frantically for his crutch. She yawns, bemused, but hops down off the bed and fetches it. He scrambles up as fast as he can and heads for the stairs. Clattering down he sees Blue crouched by the doorway, trying to unjam something from the wheel of his case. His hair is messy, and he’s wearing the tacky _Pewter Museum Rocks!_ T-shirt that Red bought just to annoy him. He also looks insanely pissed off at an inanimate object.

Red has never been happier to see such a mess in his entire life.

‘Red? Oh, hey, pal, sorry I woke ya, I’m just –‘ Blue says, but that all he manages before Red pulls him into a bone-crushing hug, his crutch clattering to the floor beside him. Sylveon slinks around their feet for a second, before spotting Pikachu and deciding her friend was of much greater interest to her.

‘Woah, oof, you – ha – you weren’t kidding about missing me,’ he mumbles, as though he hadn’t quite believed it until now. Red nods. Blue is very warm, and feels a bit denser than he did when he left, like he actually managed to pack on a little muscle mass during all the hiking.

‘Ha, come on,’ Blue says, even as he hugs him back, ‘You don’t wanna be doing this right now. I’ve just been on a 17-hour flight, I stink.’

It’s true. He smells absolutely terrible. Like sweat, too much compensatory deodorant, and the red wine he, judging by the faded stain around the collar of his shirt, spilled on himself mid-flight.

Blue _always_ accepts the complementary wine on the flight, even though all he does is complain about how bad it is the whole time. And usually ends up spilling it. In that moment, the normally annoying habit fills Red with an extremely illogical fondness, and he kisses him quite without thinking about it.

‘Urgh, old people are _so_ lame,’ a voice says behind them.

Red turns his head to find Moon staring at them, her face twisted in damning preteen disdain. Blue tries to pull away, but Red keeps him in place.

Mostly because he isn’t ready to let go but also. Well, he tossed his crutch aside and now if Blue moves he’ll probably collapse.

Blue gives up on disentangling himself, instead resting his hands on Red’s shoulders. He looks at Moon, wide-eyed, and then back at Red.

‘Uh. She’s still here?’ he asks quietly.

Red nods, even though he thinks it should be perfectly self-explanatory that she’s still here. Blue makes a sound that’s halfway between a sigh and a laugh, shaking his head.

‘Look, as much as I’d like to talk about this –‘ Red interrupts him with a gesture to his case and a meaningful look. Blue shakes his head.

‘And tell you about my trip,’ he corrects, ‘I’m totally going to pass out. Bed. I’ll tell you everything in the morning.’

Red nods.

‘Why don’t you carry him up there?’ Moon suggests innocently. Blue shoots her a glower that would make a man quail. Unfortunately for him, he was dealing with a pre-adolescent girl. One particularly unimpressed by authority, at that.

‘Red was right about you,’ he says darkly.

‘Wait, what? What did he say?’

‘Hey, Sylveon, grab the big guy’s crutch, will you?’

‘Don’t ignore me! What did he _say_?’

Despite Blue’s repeated insistence that he’s going to go straight to sleep, he talks about his time in Kalos until they both drift off.

#

Red’s schedule doesn’t change much after his trip to the hospital. He gets up at the same time, exercises with his Pokémon (sitting down, with his leg raised), he takes his medicine and Chansey egg (cooked), and then he sets up a pot of coffee and prepares Moon’s breakfast. Chie comes after that, then he makes lunch. Sometimes there’s visitors on the afternoon. Most of the time, Red has to try and entertain himself, itching for the Battle Tree to get fixed, or for his leg to be fixed, whichever comes first.

Yet there are two main changes.

First, most obviously, Blue is back. That eases so much of Red’s restless nerves and boredom. He’s brought back Kalosian coffee and pastries and clothes (mostly for himself), and he has a lot of stories. He shows Red photos of the small rock-fairy type Pokémon they were tracking up on the mountains, the one they think has a good chance of matching the one called ‘Diancie’ from legends.

Apparently conditions up there are making Carbink spontaneously evolve, into something that resembles the legendary Pokémon, and they have been struggling to understand why. Blue was helping catch as many Carbink as possible for research, while observing behaviours of the small lattices of Diancie forming throughout the region, and running translation between the Unovan, Sinnohan, and Kalosian members of the team.

It’s fascinating, and incredibly impressive, but Red would be happy to have Blue back even if he’d been doing something really boring out in Kalos the whole time. He tells Blue this once, and Blue smacks him over the nose with the sheet of data he was holding.

The second change is Moon. While she hasn’t left the house, she is leaving the guest room regularly, emerging for meals, and sometimes to watch TV in the living room.

She wakes early for a kid. Not as early as Red, but earlier than Blue, and has taken to heading directly in the kitchen to demand breakfast.

Red feels more self-conscious making her breakfast with her staring directly at him, but he’s nothing if not a master at pancakes at this point. He slides over a plate, and then goes to make his morning shake.

‘Wait, you make _me_ this and then you have gross health juice for breakfast?’ she pipes up, blinking at the pancakes and juice, and then up at him.

Red, taking out his earplugs (they had yet to invent a blender that didn’t sound completely horrible), just looks at her, raising an eyebrow. She sighs, apparently giving up on whatever weird issue she had with that, and spears a piece of pancake and Razz Berry with her fork.

‘You are _so_ weird,’ she mutters, and eats the rest of her breakfast in silence.

#

It can’t go on forever though. Chie seems more down-hearted every time she visits. At first she had been ecstatic that Moon was leaving the guest room, but now she just seems sad, as though she thinks her child has permanently chosen other guardians over her.

Which isn’t even right. Red can _tell_ how much Moon misses her Mom, even as much as she pretends not to. She’s wound tightly as a coil until Chie comes to visit, sitting far-too-still with that weird blank smile. She just.

Can’t leave. Not yet. And Red doesn’t know how to help her. He’s been wracking his brain, over and over. He doesn’t even know how to bring it up.

So, he’s not surprised when Blue does it.

‘So,’ he says on evening, sitting up and pushing Red’s arm from around his shoulders, ‘Wanna talk about why you’re still here?’

Moon twists around from her spot on the rug in front of the TV, looking at him.

‘Do you want rent?’ she says, perfectly pleasantly. Blue rolls his eyes.

‘No, kid. I just think we should maybe talk about this,’ he says, shifting to let Sylveon jump into his lap, ‘You know, the whole thing with you camping out here. I mean, you’re the Champ. You’ve gotta have better things to do than hang around here all day.’

Moon brings her knees up to her chin, fixing her gaze back on the television.

‘I do,’ she says, in a very small voice, ‘I know my trainer’s leave is up, I have to go do… _something_ …’

She trails off, and Primarina hums softly.

‘Hey, I’m not saying you have to run off and outdo yourself,’ Blue replies, ‘Trust me as one of Kanto’s top trainers – getting to be Champ is no mean feat.’

She glances at him, mouth twitching

‘No matter how short the reign?’ she says innocently. Blue snorts, rolling his eyes.

‘Watch it, kid,’ he says, wiggling a finger at her, ‘I’m _just_ saying, you don’t have to run off and do something else great. You can just head back to school. In fact, you probably should.’

‘Urgh, I _know_ ,’ she whines, huffing and leaning back with her arms folded, jiggling a foot, ‘I’ve seen Leaf interviewed too, you know.’

Red’s mouth twitches.

‘Just. I don’t know,’ she says, becoming quieter, ‘If I go home my journey’s over. And it feels like I had most of it _stolen_ any way.’

Blue looks at Red for help. Red holds up a picture of Lillie on his phone. Blue shrugs desperately. Ah, yeah. Red texted him bits of the story, but since he’d just been sort of texting whatever he was thinking about, it probably hadn’t made a great deal of sense.

‘Look, uh,’ Blue says, fumbling, ‘Who says you have to go _straight_ home?’

She turns around, leaning over Primarina.

‘What?’-

 ‘I’m just saying. You don’t have to leave here, hop straight on a Charizard, and head straight back to your Mom’s house,’ he says, and then shrugs, ‘Take the long way around.’

It’s genius and Red has absolutely no idea how he didn’t think about it.

‘…Like, walk all the way back to Iki Town?’ Moon says, sounding as though the idea hadn’t remotely occurred to her either, ‘From here?’

‘Why not? You’ve done it the other way around,’ he says, and then shoots her a stern look, ‘You just need to sign up for distance learning for the walk back.’

‘What are you, my Dad?’ she scoffs, completely unmoved by Blue’s attempt at being the responsible adult. She turns away, and Blue throws his hands up at Red, expression exasperated. Red texts him.

_Try dealing with this for two weeks alone._

Blue disguises a snort as a cough.

‘That said,’ Moon mutters, ‘Walking back doesn’t sound like a bad idea…’

‘Exactly! Go the long way around, and by the time you get back, you’ll be sick of travelling,’ Blue continues, gesturing.

‘…Hm. I’ll think about it.’

She doesn’t sound particularly committed.

Red grabs his notepad from by the side of the couch and scribbles a single word, passing it to Moon.

‘ _Deadline_?’ she reads out, ‘Deadline for what?’

‘Ha, that’s a great idea,’ Blue says with a grin, ‘Okay, kid, let’s cut a deal. End of the week, you have to decide whether you’re staying or going.’

‘…And how are you going to make me do that?’ she says, sceptical.

Blue glances at Red for help, but he’s already writing something else.

_Hau and Gladion._

‘…What about them?’ Moon asks, but she sounds nervous.

_We’ll tell them you’re leaving on Sunday._

_Invite them round to meet you._

‘…They. They don’t have time for that.’

_They do._

‘And if you decide you don’t want to go by then, we’ll cancel,’ Blue jumps in, grinning as though he came up with this idea himself, ‘But you have to decide, otherwise they’re just going to turn up regardless.’

‘Okay, okay!’ she says, and then takes a very deep breath, ‘I’ll do it. I can be ready by the end of the week. I. I think.’

#

As the final day approaches, Red finds himself getting more and more nervous. Fizzing with energy, he puts together some supplies for her – healing items and a few packets of Ultra Balls, as well as some food for the road, whatever she might need.

Blue finds this incredibly funny. So does Mom, when he texts her about it. Red doesn’t really get why.

Moon, as Red gets more and more twitchy and angry-looking, gets more and more calm and composed. She holds herself stiffer, smiles constantly, and doesn’t focus her eyes too much.

They are both very nervous, and Blue is the only one who is remotely calm.

‘You know she’s made this journey in reverse, right?’ Blue mutters from their bed. Red is up, checking the inventory he’s made her. He stuffs a paper map of Alola into her kit (yes, he knows she has Rotomdex, but he personally thinks that kids these days rely too much on electronics. A _real_ map won’t run out of battery or lose signal), and wonders if he’s done enough. If she’s going to be able to do this, or he’s screwed up somehow, and they’ve ended up setting her up for a worse fall.

It’s tomorrow, the other kids had been told, Chie has been told, its tomorrow and if this doesn’t work, Red feels like she’ll get so angry at herself it might set her back even further. She might head straight back to the League. She might go _further_ away than that, somewhere that they won’t be able to find her easily, and the thought threatens to send Red into a panic.

There’s a lot of places in Alola someone could go if they wanted to be lost.

Red knows, because every time he had a bad day at the Battle Tree, or got overwhelmed in the city, or ended up on the receiving end of a paparazzi’s camera, he found himself listing all of them.

‘Hey,’ Blue says, next to him now, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, ‘She’ll be _fine_ , seriously. Even if she doesn’t manage this time, we’ll get her out of here some other way.’

He knows that, logically, intellectually, he knows, but the bubble of fear at his throat isn’t interested in logic, it never is.

Still half-asleep, Blue offers his hands, and Red takes them, squeezing until he’s calmer.

‘Look. Come to bed. Tomorrow’s going to come regardless of whether you sit here and knit her socks all night,’ he says.

Red supposes that’s a point. They’ve made a bed now. All they can do is lie in it.

‘But trust me on this one,’ Blue says, handing Red his crutch so he can make the brief journey from desk to bed, ‘She’ll be fine.’

#

‘You ready for this?’ Blue asks, arms folded. Moon is dressed – properly dressed, not in pyjamas or jogging pants – in one of her fashionable outfits, her hair is brushed, and she’s even insisted on putting make-up on (Red is mildly scandalised that 12-year-olds even _wear_ make-up, but he suspects Blue will tease him if he says as much). She looks almost as pristine as she did when Red first saw her up on Mount Lanakila, but her face is much more relaxed.

She looks ready, but Red is still conscious it could go wrong very quickly. She keeps fiddling with the straps of the backpack Blue bought her for the occasion, as though it’s horribly uncomfortable no matter what she does.

‘Can’t I use my handbag?’ she says. Blue scoffs.

‘I have _no_ idea how you managed with that tiny little accessory,’ he says.

Bold words from the man who used a _belt bag_ his entire journey, Red thinks.

‘You both put too much in here,’ she complains, ‘It’s really heavy.’

‘Build your muscle strength back up,’ Blue says, as Red thinks exactly the same. She huffs, looking sulky.

Red suddenly realises that she genuinely is going to be fine.

‘What time did you tell them to turn up?’

‘Like, ten minutes time, or something,’ Blue says, shrugging, and then heads into the sitting room for something.

Moon crouches down, putting on her shoes. Her fingers are shaking, just a little. Red almost wants to help her lace them up, but he stops himself, leaning back against the wall. Pikachu and Mimikyu are having a little conference behind them – it sort of looks like Pikachu is trying to get Sylveon to say goodbye to Mimikyu. Neither look entirely convinced of the other. The thought is incredibly unscientific and anthropomorphising and almost certainly not what the Pokémon are doing, but it makes Red grin anyway.

She stands up, breathing in deeply. Blue returns from the sitting room.

‘Just spied them out of the window, they’re on the way,’ he says, ‘Looks like they’re arguing about something.’

Moon snorts.

‘Sounds about right,’ she mutters, ‘I can’t believe me being a total crazy person has forced them to become _friends_. I bet they’re mad about that.’

Red doubts it, somehow.

‘Wanna run out and meet them?’ Blue asks.

Moon stares at the front door, straps of her backpack crushed in her hands. Mimikyu scuttles along the floor to join her, hopping up onto her shoulder. She looks ready to run away. To head straight back into her room and slam the door.

Instead, she turns to them.

‘I can come back and visit, right? I still haven’t battled you,’ she says, pointing at Blue, and then at Red, ‘And our win-loss record is still 50:50. I can’t accept that.’

‘Hit up the battle tree any time you want, kid,’ Blue says

‘…I mean…yeah, but…can I visit here too?’ she says, fidgeting. Blue glances at him, and Red nods furiously.

‘Sure. Just tell your Mom, and no more sleepovers. We’re not a hotel for runaway Champions,’ he says. The joke makes her mouth twitch, but she seems determined to never give Blue a laugh. Red can’t help but think it’s similar to how Pikachu desperately pretends not to like him too.

She just nods, and then turns to Red, fidgeting.

‘Uh.’

Uh.

‘Hey. So. Um. I know you don’t usually like them but. Can I hug you?’

Surprised, Red nods. It’s not as though he hates _them_ – he just hates being grabbed out of nowhere.

As soon as he nods, Moon’s arms are tight around his waist, her face buried in his chest. It’s nice. He still has no idea what to do with his arms, though. He settles for patting her head.

She releases him, breathes in deeply, turns to the door, and throws it open. Red can see Gladion and Hau approaching. On spotting Moon, Hau begins to wave wildly, hand straight up in the air.

‘Okay,’ she says, ‘I’m going! See you!’

She steps through the open door, and then begins to run, shouting at the two boys in Unovan.

Red sees her glance back once, before Hau is pulling her along behind him, and Gladion is racing to keep up.

Then she’s gone, and it was weirdly much easier and much harder than Red had anticipated.

Blue breathes out.

‘Sheesh, I’m glad we finally got _that_ mess sorted,’ he says, and then looks at Red carefully, ‘Hey. How’s your leg doing?’

Red makes a wobbly hand gesture.

‘Better than it was though, right?’

Red gives a thumbs-up.

‘Ha, then, how about we take a walk on the beach?’ he says, stretching, ‘I think you’re due a battle. I need to make sure you haven’t gotten soft in the past couple of weeks.’

Red smirks and grabs his bag. The Alolan winter gives them plenty hours of sunshine yet, and they still have so much to talk about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally Red didn't even text Blue what was happening so the scene when Blue comes back was very much
> 
> BLUE: Hey, I'm home! Did ya miss me?  
> MOON: Hey Dad, welcome home!  
> BLUE:  
> BLUE: What the fuck.


End file.
